My Religion Is You (I'm A Tough Bitch)
by ILookDaftWithOneShoe
Summary: The Avengers: One (deceased) vampire, one alcoholic, one introvert, two potential traitors, and Steve and Thor. It's not a foolproof team, but it's all they've got on their mission to contact Heaven and stop Amora. But Heaven, Hell and Earth aren't the only players here. And Purgatory's going to fight dirty. Sequel to Got No Salvation from the Show Me Your Teeth series.
1. Prologue: Just Got My Vamp

**A/N: **This chapter is actually a one-shot that comes before the next part in the series; however one-shots don't make it as far on as they do on AO3, so I decided to post this as part of the main story. Read it anyway, it's still relevant, and the first chapter of the next story will be up soon.

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**Got No Direction, Just Got My Vamp**

The threads of life will take one many different places.

Steve Rogers' thread, for example, took him from Brooklyn - intertwined with a Bucky Barnes - to overseas, fighting in the infantry, where plenty of other threads stopped. Then home, parting with the thread of one Miss Peggy Carter, and winding all over America, stopping monster threads along the way. Bucky's thread was lost to a flooded river, and Steve's thread met Tony Stark's. And so on.

Loki Laufeyson's thread had taken him from England to Iceland to America, criss-crossing all those countries. He really hadn't expected it to end up where it did.

Purgatory. The Afterlife of Monsters. Where the souls of Eve's children preyed on each other for all eternity.

When Loki woke up in Purgatory, he'd been half-expecting the whole thing to be an elaborate lie by Amora and he'd just be dead. Instead he was lying on a bed of leaves, wearing the thin v-neck and black jeans he'd died in.

Loki sat up, looking around at where he was. Trees everywhere, blotting out the sky in places, like the forests Loki had stayed in shortly after becoming a vampire. It was dusk, though the absence of light seemed perpetual, and there was a thin fog in the air. It wasn't too bad. Not like you'd expect, fire and chains and eternal damnation.

"Hey!" A voice said. "There's someone!"

Loki got to his feet, fast, feeling a surprising burst of satisfaction when his body responded vampirically. Fuck yes. Back to normal.

There were three or four figures walking towards him though the mist.

Loki's nose identified them as vampires, and they seemed vaguely familiar.

"It is the Burison boy, _ja_?" One of them said with a thick Russian accent.

Loki knew him. He'd killed him, back in the Alpha's mansion. "Greetings." Loki said awkwardly.

"Looks like someone got you back." The Russian vampire grinned, pulling a blade from his clothing. "I think you should run."

Unarmed, that was exactly what Loki did. He crashed over roots, moving swiftly, knowing that he was evenly matched by the vampires after his skin.

They were gaining on him. Jelly-limbed and uncoordinated from his sudden appearance in a new dimension as a vampire, he was going to lose this race. But Loki's brain had always been his most valuable asset, and it could help him now.

It only took him a few moments of hurried sprinting to do the calculation.

He put on another burst of speed, let his pace get bouncier, then pushed off the ground as hard as he could.

_Thunk!_ Loki hit a knot on a tree where a broken branch had been, pushed off again using his momentum, and managed to snatch a lower canopy branch and haul himself upwards. It was a performance that would have shamed most human gymnasts. But Loki wasn't human.

The trees were tall, extremely so, and Loki could tell by squinting through the mist that finding the branch he was on - about nine or ten metres off the ground - was an enormous stroke of luck. The other vampires couldn't follow without either climbing one of the trees, which was nearly impossible with the smooth bark and lack of branches, or repeating Loki's maneouver, which was probably impossible.

As he went to shimmy higher into the tree, Loki became aware of the fact he'd ripped the seat of his pants, just below the back pocket. Goddamnit. He'd have to steal some new pants as soon as possible.

Actually, he'd have to steal quite a lot of things when the opportunity arose.

First was first. The vampires under the tree.

"Vere are you, little Burison?" The Russian vampire shouted. "You vill have to come down eventually! There's no food up there!"

Loki peeked his head down. "Actually, I think I shall be just fine where I am. Unless you think you could follow me...?"

Judging by their looks of frustration, they couldn't.

"We'll catch you eventually." Another vampire chuckled. "I mean, we're here for the rest of eternity."

"We shall see about that." Loki said, grasping a higher branch and hauling himself upwards to be hidden in the thick canopy.

As children, Thor and Loki had both been seasoned tree climbers, and Loki could feel the years of experience coming back to him. Where you placed your feet and hands, how far you could jump...it was all experience.

This was like being on the run. For a vampire like Loki to survive in a natural envirionment, all he needed was food and shelter. Other essentials for life didn't apply to him.

To survive in Purgatory, he was also going to need weapons. So food, weapons and shelter.

The trees would work for shelter. At least in this area, they were too tall to climb for most low-power monsters, and the stronger ones hopefully weren't interested in hunting him. Of course, he'd need to devise a way to climb them himself without the ridiculous stroke of luck he'd had, but it was _much_ safer than staying on the ground, where anything could happen. Maybe finding a way to spike his shoes?

Food. Loki had no idea what monsters were even vaguely edible, having only preyed on humans and animals. Vampires didn't need to feed often, so he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

Finally, weapons, which were bound to be in the hands of the strong or smart. With everyone on high alert in a place like this, pickpocketing wasn't going to happen, and considering Loki was unarmed, he wasn't about to take anyone by force. If they were humans, maybe, but Loki didn't have a strength or speed advantage against fellow monsters. Maybe he could loot a corpse? He'd have to be fast.

Looting was probably his only option for new pants, too. The dilemma was now: did he run around in tight jeans with a rip across the ass, which would restrict his climbing ability, or ditch the pants entirely and hope that black satin boxers were enough clothing for the tree life?

He compromised by tearing the legs off and being extremely fashionable in denim short shorts. Oh, how Tony would laugh if he could see him now.

Tony.

The sudden action, passion of being suddenly chased, had woken Loki up. It had been stupid of him to think Tony was leaving him, and just as stupid to think signing a deal with Amora was anything but bad.

But Thor's soul was back now, so it wasn't all bad.

This sudden realisation of fact, that Loki was in the wrong, made Loki feel absurdly bitter against Amora. If he was still on Earth, he'd vow to hunt her down. Here in Purgatory, he was stuck.

Humans made it out of Hell, right? As demons. Free thinking demons. A little twisted, but living creatures. And Heaven had angels - though Loki had no idea whether they were dead humans or what.

So you could leave the afterlife, even if you were a bit messed up when you did.

Loki didn't mind being a little messed up. He couldn't get much lower than he already was.

If it was possible, he would go and get revenge on Amora for being a bitchy cunt of a demon. Then he could die and be settled.

Meanwhile, he needed to be armed.

-O.O-

Loki had been in the trees two days, leaping around, keeping hidden and off the ground, when he spotted his first serious altercation.

There were fights all the time, of course. Put a bunch of monsters in a confined space, and that was what you got.

But this was a massacre - a group of about a dozen vampires, living in a pack, fighting a group of arachne. It was a mess, web everywhere, and Loki could see the same crude knifes made of hewn rock and bone that the Russian vampire - who was in the battle - had been holding.

The battle was next to a pond, and had been getting closer and closer to the water, meaning the corpses of the first few slain were off to the side a little.

Now was his chance, if ever. Loki leapt from tree to tree to get to the edge of the forest, waited until no one was watching at all, and swooped down to land in a crouch roll on the mossy ground. Then he dove forward to the corpse of a female arachne and stripped her of her crappy little dirk and a chain, a real metal chain, wherever that had come from.

The next monster he looted was a vampire who looked like a teenage boy. With his long legs and skinny hips, he was probably an okay match in clothing sizes for Loki.

Loki stole the vampire's pants, jacket, and badly made bludgeon. Score!

He was suddenly conscious of eyes on him. Loki turned, dirk and bludgeon at the ready, prepared to fight, when the Russian vampire - Vanko - grabbed him and pinned him against a tree by his shoulder, bringing his stone blade to his throat.

Reacting instinctively, Loki buried the knife in Vanko's neck, and when he was released smashed the other vampire's ribs with the stone bludgeon.

Loki knew he was going to be attacked again, so he dumped the stone bludgeon, stuffed the chain, pants and jacket in his shirt and used the dirk to stab through a low tree's trunk and desperately scramble up.

After leaping deeper into the forest, Loki felt safe enough to stop, ditch his short shorts, tug on the pants and jacket, and settle in the crown of a tall tree to sleep for a few hours.

As he dozed, Loki pondered the short battle he'd been in. He'd been reacting out of pure instinct, not a moment's thought, and it had worked well. Maybe letting the vamp take over would be better for conflicts?

-O.O-

Loki had been living in Purgatory for a month now. He'd been marking days by cutting notches in the tall tree he'd taken to living in.

The tree was a home like he'd never expected. It was insanely difficult to get to, seeing as you had to start from the lower trees near the ponds and then do a few death-defying leaps, past some traps Loki had set, and know exactly where to place your feet. Loki's home hadn't been breached once yet, not even by arachne, who lived about three or four kilometres away in the trees.

The home itself was basically a glorified nest. Clint would have approved. The whole thing was wrapped in dried branches, forming a crude bowl shape, and Loki had hacked away the branches in the middle to give himself some kind of a floor. Lifting rocks from the riverbed up to here had been hard work, but worth it, because he had a viable firepit for when the night came, such as a weird darkening of the sky could be called. There was even a mat of looted clothing for him to sleep on. Considering the standards in those parts, that was luxury.

Loki had also acquired a rather nice collection of weapons looted or stolen. Knives, ranging from stubby dirks to cleavers; bludgeons and axes; a sickle; all these were hidden in a secret place in his nest. He only took a few at a time when he went out for food or knowledge, in case he died and they were taken.

He had already been killed half a dozen times in various ways. The worst, in his opinion, had been his unfortunate consumption by what he had later learned was called a Leviathan.

Chewed bloody and swallowed almost whole; a nasty way to go.

Vanko's crew had gotten their revenge once, taking advantage of a broken arm he'd gotten by scrapping with a werewolf to trap him on the ground and hack his head off.

One time Loki had misjudged a jump between trees and had fallen fifteen metres, snapping his neck and leaving him paralysed for a very amused pair of skinwalkers to turn into dogs and tear him apart for food.

Generally, it was open game on hunting other monsters. They came back to life anyway. There was no lower form of death for monsters than Purgatory.

News of Loki's appearance had spread to a decent number of vampires there, meaning any chance of him joining a pack was non-existent. Vampires were some of the tougher creatures there, and their ability to cooperate in packs helped.

Food was sparse. There weren't many creatures Loki could eat without getting sick, and most of them knew by now to stay away from the vampire part of the forest.

The forest itself went on forever, or so Loki could tell. The very few conversations he'd had with other creatures would indicate so.

That was all the talking Loki did. It simply wasn't necessary.

A lot of things weren't necessary. He'd mostly given up talking, and had decided to curb any deep thoughts on his destiny. Day to day he found himself letting the vamp in him take over and run the show. It was just easier.

The only thoughts Loki went into with any depth were thoughts of his revenge against Amora, leaving Purgatory, or of Tony, Thor or Frigga. Aside from that, it was just shallow blankness, day in, day out.

A tiny part of human-Loki knew that he'd stop thinking about those things, too, soon enough.

It was more peaceful that way. Give up humanity, go full monster. So simple and easy.

Since entering Purgatory, Loki had learned and relearned a number of useful skills. Tree climbing, obviously, but others too, like knife throwing, chain-whipping, swimming, hand-to-hand combat, building, crafting knives, and scenting. It had taken a while, but he was adapted to living in such a harsh environment.

The main notable thing about day 30 was that it was the last time Loki thought about Amora and leaving Purgatory.

He stopped thinking about Frigga the next day, and Tony and Thor were fading memories.

On day 34, Loki's fates finally changed.

The vampire had been killed two days ago, struck down by a knife through the ribs and then beheaded without a chance for survival, and he'd wanted revenge.

He'd had it. Bloody and satisfying. Oh god yes.

Loki was running on instinct and almost no sentience as he headed back to the pond for the trapeze act of getting home.

Climb, branch, branch, leap, run, branch, avoid trap, etc. No brain input required.

After a few minutes, he was back home, climbing over the little wall into his nest.

There was a girl sitting on his mat.

She smelled a little like a Leviathan.

Loki growled, pulling out two knives and getting ready to fight.

"Shh, Loki." The girl said soothingly. "It's okay. You're not so far gone you don't understand me. Talk to me."

That confused Loki. The girl had used his name. No one used his name. He was the Burison boy.

"Leviathan?" He managed questioningly.

"No, not a Leviathan. Come on, Loki. Talk properly. I'm here for your brain, not for a feral vampire." The girl urged.

"Feral." Loki said, another question.

"Yes, feral. Try talking in longer sentences." She said patiently. "Here, this is for you."

She held out a metal knife to him. Actual _metal_. And it was inscribed with curious markings.

"Who are you? What is that?" Loki said, feeling a bit of human curiousity make it through vampiric instinct.

"Consider the knife a gesture of solidarity. And I'm a girl with a plan, Mr Laufeyson." She smiled. "Have a seat. And do try to talk more."

"I cannot recall ever being asked to talk _more_." Loki replied. More human was bleeding through by the moment.

"Well, now's your chance, my son." She patted the mat, indicating for Loki to sit. "Tell me; what's Amora been doing?"


	2. Bottom Of The Pit Right To The Top

**A/N: **Right! Here it is, and I hope you like it! This is the actual story now. I'd love some comments, I really would, and thanks to Helca Maica and Fangirl 666 for the comments so far!

And a weird note: The three themesongs for this are Radioactive, It's Time and Demons by Imagine Dragons, and Loki's theme is the Diamond Dogs album by Bowie. I don't know why.

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**Chapter 1:Bottom Of The Pit Right To The Top**

Somewhere, a long way away from where Tony Stark had a bunch of low-ranking demons cornered in New York, a group of dragons held a virginal girl hostage.

The girl had sharp features, big brown eyes and wavy brown hair, and she would have done _anything_ to escape from her predicament.

Not that the dragons cared, but the thought was nice.

The monsters chanted, opening a rift that they then threw the girl into.

Screaming, and then silence.

After a short time, the girl floated back out of the chasm, limbs glowing and seared, eyes burning with supernatural power.

"My children." She said affectionately. "Thank you. Do you have the book?"

One of the dragonmen triumphantly waved the book they'd read from to open the passage from Purgatory. "Yes, Mother."

"Good. I have someone else I need to bring back." The Mother of Monsters smiled.

-O.O-

As aforementioned, Tony Stark was in New York, facing three low-ranking demons in a crappy apartment while holding a dart gun.

A lot of this part of town was starting to look like that; the flat was gloomy and dirty, and the room they were in was a combined living room - dining room - kitchen situation. Hardly luxury.

"See, I've been working on a new toy." Tony said. "Darts full of saline holy water. Now, I know it won't kill you, but I can_guarantee_ it'll hurt like shit."

By the look the demons were giving the chunky grey dart gun, they agreed.

"What do you want, Stark?" One of the demons, possessing a stocky blonde man, said.

Tony was pretty certain he was becoming notorious to demons, now that he was building weapons capable of hurting them. These ones had been worried from the moment they'd seen him.

"Pretty simple. What's Amora doing?" Tony questioned.

In the month and a half since Loki had died, Tony had been working his ass off to keep an eye on Amora, and keeping the other Avengers - that was what the motley group of six were calling themselves now - busy.

Bruce was gathering information, basically. On the names Tony could remember - Amora, Skurge, Malekith, and Lorelei - and any scrap of information on Heaven, Hell and Purgatory there was.

Clint and Natasha were in charge of, quite simply, trying to contact Heaven, under the assumption that Heaven, angels, God, they were the good guys. They weren't getting far. Angels don't just pick up the phone, apparently.

Thor was looking for_ anything_ about Purgatory. He had the most experience with monsters, the most motivation - Loki - aside from Tony, and the most contacts, so that was his job. And so far, he had come up with little. Theology suggested it didn't exist. Apparently there was a book somewhere, but that trail had gone cold with the burglary of the archive it was supposedly housed in.

And Steve? Steve - a highly religious man, for the record - had been helping Natasha and Clint, as the three faithful members of Team Free Steve, and had been wholeheartedly determined to make contact with those he'd worshipped his whole life, but had been waylaid a little about a month after they'd started by the fact his home district of Brooklyn was currently being slowly and subtly besieged by Djinn. Apparently the Alpha Djinn was in the area. According to Bruce, monsters across the country were getting more audacious. It didn't bode well.

"Am- Amora?" The blonde male demon said, terrified. Funny. Amora's name often had that reaction.

"Yes. Amora. You may have seen her; she's in charge of you." Tony snarked.

"I won't talk about her." The demon sniffed, full of resolve. "What she can do to me is far worse than anything you can do, Tony Stark."

Tony shot the demon. It went down screaming. "Well, that's what you get. Would either of you two like to volunteer some information?"

Both of the demons remaining shook their heads frantically. "She's a lot scarier than you are."

"Really." Tony deadpanned. "How 'bout Malekith?" More terror. "Lorelei?"

This wasn't going far. The Big Three, as Tony thought of them, were obviously capable of far more unpleasant punishments than salt and holy water.

"Anything at all you'd like to tell me that you think might help your case?" Tony asked.

"You're - you're looking for a way to get someone out of Purgatory, aren't you?" The demon in an Asian woman meatsuit said.

"Depends. Got anything for me?" Tony frowned.

"There is a way! There's a book, I heard about a book, it has all the sigils in it for access to Purgatory." The demon continued.

"The book's a false trail." Tony said. "No points for you. If there's nothing else-"

The two demons were obviously keeping their eyes on the squirming demon on the floor, fully aware of the pain they could be experiencing if they didn't think of anything.

"Nothing at all?" Tony mocked, aiming the dart gun.

The other demon, not the Asian woman, spun, tried to use its telekinesis to remove the gun, but Tony shot first.

Two demons down, screaming on the floor. One demon left, considering a quick self-exorcism to avoid being shot. Tony was definitely keeping the dart gun. Field testing showed positive results.

"What about you, black eyes?" Tony said to the last demon. "Any news?"

The demon managed to say "There's been a lot of killings recently."

"Oh, come on. A kid could've told me that." Tony snorted.

"They're related. All killed by monsters, all around the same age." The demon explained, running her hand through her black hair, thinking of what she could and couldn't say. "It's no coincidence. The monsters are working together for their mother, Eve."

"Eve. You mean, like Garden of Eden Eve?" Tony said disbelievingly.

"Her, yes. She got instructions out from Purgatory to kill these humans, I don't know why. That's all I know." The demon said. "Let me go. I told you something. You should investigate that."

"Maybe I will." Tony said, levelling the dart gun at her. "You should leave."

She took the message and walked quickly out of the apartment they'd been camped in, leaving her two teammates on the ground. She'd be back later.

Meanwhile, Tony left the building, made it to the Chrysler, chucked on Loki's leather jacket for warmth - the arms were a bit long but it smelt like Loki so he always wore it, not just to remind him of the vampire he'd loved and lost, but also to remind him of why he was hunting Amora - and got in the car, intending to head over to Brooklyn to help Steve wherever possible. Then ring Bruce and find out the connection the demon had hinted at.

-O.O-

Generally, the bizarre happenings across America weren't affecting Thor. He'd been on the trail of the Purgatory book for a long time, keeping out of the spotlight, and now that scent had gone out, he was following the trail of the men who'd taken it.

The men, he'd discovered, were not men. He wasn't completely certain what they were, but they definitely weren't men by any means. They had a predilection for taking virginal girls - the town had lost plenty so far - and the archive that had lost the Purgatory book was also down one box of solid gold Mycenaen artifacts.

Bruce, after a few hours of deliberating over his database, said it was dragons, which didn't exist. A+ for effort.

So Thor decided to disregard species, take a shotgun, silver knife, cartridge with rock salt, and a bottle of holy water, and stake out the abandoned storm shelters the whatevers were hiding in, camping in his chunky silver car, Mjolnir. If there was even the slightest possibility of saving the girls Thor knew were trapped there, or retrieving the Purgatory book, he would take it.

Unfortunately he did neither.

Turns out, they'd been hiding a van in one of the shelters, having caved in a wall, and they drove out before he had a clue what was going on.

Snapping to full consciousness, he twisted the key in the ignition and fired up Mjolnir to follow them.

-O.O-

Thor missed Loki at a time like this. Not twisted, scary vampire Loki, but his kid brother. The one who'd unwillingly followed him out on hunts and done all the brainwork. He had been so cute. Besides that, kid Loki would probably have understood what he was watching.

Because the so-called dragons or whatever were doing something to one of the girls they'd taken. And Thor couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Unwilling to just charge in when he didn't know what he was dealing with, he was watching the things from afar.

So far, to his surprise, they'd chanted from the selfsame book he'd been tracking, opened a huge hole in the ground, and thrown the girl in. Then the girl had come out again, smiling creepily and glowing like a motherfucker.

Tony probably wouldn't be happy with just that as a witness statement, but Thor was a little distracted. See, right after the girl had come out of the abyss, and after she'd affectionately greeted the_ things_ that had gotten her out - Thor was calling possession, unless the girl had multiple personalities - another woman had turned up, looking pissed off.

She looked surprisingly like Amora, making Thor suspect that this was Lorelei. Tall, powerful, blonde, and dressed like a back alley's finest. Of course, both bodies being vessels, there was no reason for them to look similar, but who knew how vain they were - Tony said they were supposed to be sisters, however that worked with demons. Then her eyes rolled back white and he lipread the glowing virginal girl saying the name 'Lorelei' or maybe it was 'Lovino', so yeah, probably Lorelei.

After that, shit got real. Lorelei attacked the girl, fire and things Thor couldn't comprehend, and the girl got her dragony things to attack back with their hands glowing hot.

The dragons were butchered. Lorelei tore them apart. Thor had seen a lot of gore in his life, and he still had to bring his eyes away from his binoculars. It was all so horribly messy.

When Thor looked back again, they were all dead. Little bits remained, and nothing else.

And oh, did it make the girl mad. She was all righteous fury. Thor was certain she shouted '_my children_!' in rage.

Her and Lorelei stood face to face, arguing viciously, too fast to lipread. It seemed neither was actually capable of killing the other, both being too powerful to be killed by anything except a powerful and specific weapon. After an intensely harsh slew of vitriol, Lorelei vanished and the girl wandered away barefoot, taking the book from the van where it had been left and walking into the night.

Thor valued his life a little too much to follow. He needed to call Tony.

-O.O-

Natasha and Clint were currently staying at a Trappist monastery. If there was any place to contact God, staying for free and working for the monks for a few weeks was the one. Holy ground and all that. And they could learn more about the angels they were up against.

They weren't allowed to sleep in the same bed - not being married - but they were sharing a dormitory.

Having spent the day praying to God and anyone else who was listening, as well as working at the monastery, they wandered into their dormitory at a mere 9 o'clock post-dinner to discuss their plans before the evening service.

Instead, walking into the dorm, they were greeted by the sight of a large black bald man, missing an eye, in an intimidating coat.

"Greetings, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov. I am the Archangel Fury, and I'm here to talk to you about your Avengers." He said.


	3. Paint It Red, To Fit Right In

**A/N:** Everything of mine's updating today! It's glorious!

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**Chapter 2: Paint It Red, To Fit Right In**

"You're telling me after a _month_ of ringing Heaven's answering machine, you're finally calling back?" Clint said in angry disbelief. "Archangel my ass."

"That's not something you're allowed to contest." Fury growled. "Our people have been busy; your matters can wait."

"Fuck no." Clint said aggresively. "Have you guys been watching what's been going on on Earth? Amora's trying to release the fucking _devil_. How is that not important?"

"There's more going on than you think, Barton. Don't question the decisions of an Archangel. I come to you now because I need to access your resources." Fury countered.

"How're we supposed to believe you're the real deal?" Natasha said sceptically.

"Yeah, how do we even know you're an angel? You could be one of the big three, Tony calls 'em." Clint frowned.

Despite that the sky was clear and a burnt orange, lightning flashed by the window, and Fury was silhouetted by brilliant white light that showed the outline of two enormous wings, stretching across the room.

"Holy shit. Point taken." Clint gasped.

Natasha seemed wholly unfazed. But then she never looked fazed. "Will your plan help stop the devil?"

"As I said, there's more going on than you think. Hell isn't the only player here. However, the pair of you have contacts with an important character in this game, and I'd find it most helpful if you could interrogate him to find out his plans." Fury said. It didn't sound like a request; it sounded like an order.

"Who?" Natasha said, immediately going through a list of contacts mentally.

"Loki Laufeyson, vampire." Fury replied.

"He's dead." Clint said disbelievingly. "Amora killed him."

"He's coming back." Fury said. "And when he does, I want you to regain his trust and find out what he has planned. He'll be moving against Hell, and Heaven too if he can."

"Loki's coming back." Clint repeated dumbly. "Loki. Tony's going to be over the moon."

"Where do we have to go?" Natasha asked.

"California." Fury replied. "The same town where Laufeyson died. It won't be long."

"How's he-" Clint started, but with a _whoosh,_ the archangel was already gone. "I thought those guys were supposed to be all nice and heavenly and shit."

The bell tolled for evening service in the silence.

-O.O-

Now, as Amora, Lorelei and Malekith knew full well, the Cage was locked by hundreds of seals. Only 66 needed to be broken to free the devil, but that was still a somewhat herculean task.

And it didn't help that Amora and Malekith couldn't work together. Currently they were working together to break a seal, which was violate blessed ground with death. An easy seal, but they were doing it together.

They were standing outside the monastery they'd picked, preparing to walk in and blast the whole thing to rubble using Amora's cute knack for destructive white light. The sun was going down, staining the sky a burnt orange.

The pair of them looked deceptively normal, just a beautiful, conservatively dressed - for once - blonde woman, and her apparent husband, a tall, thin man with thick features, a large nose and large ears, and cropped black hair, coming to visit a monastery to hear the evening service.

Once they made it into the atrium of the monastery, they were greeted affectionately by a monk, who understood them and gently ushered them towards the main hall.

Ah, the kind openness of the samaritan religious folk. It made releasing the devil so much easier.

Midway through the sermon, Amora stood up. People looked disapprovingly upon her, but said nothing. Malekith kept an eye on the people in the room, particularly a couple that was staring at them like they recognised them.

Just as Amora went to blast the building, the woman - Natasha Romanov, to be exact - shouted "_Everyone out!_" as she grabbed her partner and smashed a stain glass window to escape.

Nobody else made it out. Clint and Natasha had made it out the window and sprinted before the light could catch them, having recognised Amora at the last minute.

Their dormitory was destroyed, along with everyone in the building, barring Malekith and Amora themselves. Clint and Natasha only just escaped the field of destruction.

"I guess we head for Cali now, huh?" Clint said in shock as they barrelled into their car, taking off as fast as possible in case Malekith and Amora decided to come after them too.

-O.O-

"It's not going to work." Malekith told Amora as they stood in the remains of the now despoiled holy ground.

"Pardon?" Amora asked.

"Breaking the seals. It's not going to work, Amora." Malekith said. "The plan's wrecked. Eve's outsmarted us again."

Amora rolled her eyes. "Call her by her real name. Angrboda. She's not as magical as we'd like to believe. And there has to be a way, I just haven't solved it yet."

"There is no other way. You know how it works; we need my special children to break the final seal, and Eve's already killed all the able-bodied ones. There's one left, and she's skinny and dumb and weak, so no matter what we do she probably won't be suitable. Eve's not as dumb as you think she is, and we moved too slow. Game over." Malekith insisted.

"I will find a way." Amora said stubbornly. "You should be helping me, not telling me I'll fail."

"Amora, stop being so pig-headed." Malekith scolded. "If I'm right - which I definitely am - then we're wasting time breaking seals when we could be taking our other option."

"Which is?" Amora said dryly. She was humouring him. Of course, she was in charge, so if she blatantly told Malekith to do what she said he'd have to, but she wasn't a dumb demon. She knew she'd have to listen to him - he had a pretty sharp mind - sometime.

"The obvious. We leave Big Daddy where he is, and you, me and Lorelei start our very own Apocalypse and move against Heaven without him." Malekith suggested. Of course, if possible he would do away with Amora and Lorelei and continue his previous rule of Hell uncontested. Amora probably knew that, but if they _did_ follow that plan she was planning to stab Malekith in the back too, so it all worked.

"No, we continue with the seals and when we reach the last one, we find a way." Amora insisted.

Malekith had to obey. That didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

-O.O-

Eve - or Angrboda, as Amora would prefer to call her - did not leave her fight with Lorelei a loser. She had the book. Not a winner, either, what with the loss of her children, but not a loser either.

Back in Purgatory, she'd hatched a plan with one of her children. Of course, the plan was pretty redundant while the pair of them were still locked in Purgatory, so she'd gotten the message out to her children, the dragons, that now was the time.

They'd taken the book, raised her up, and died for her.

Oh, how she loved her babies.

Now she had the book and was fully intending to use it. First to get her partner in crime out, and then to open Purgatory. But more on the latter at another time.

Right at that moment, she was focused on part one and was therefore making her way to where she could sense some of her vampiric children. Having read the book, she knew what it would take to get her partner out.

A few kilometres from where she'd risen from Purgatory, Angrboda was at a disused warehouse on the outskirts of the city the dragons had been living in. This part of town was the overgrown, worn out industrial part. There was no one around, not now, when the sun was dipping down past the horizon.

The warehouse wasn't as abandoned as it looked from the outside. The whole thing was subtly decked out with living spaces for the multitude of vampires within.

"My children!" Angrboda shouted out in the vast space. She knew they were there, she could sense them. They were just hiding. "I have need of you!"

A couple of vampires dropped from the rafters to look at her. "Mother?" The oldest-looking one asked.

"Yes, my children. I need help from you." Angrboda said.

Now, it's well known that vampires are among the monster races that are fully sentient and free thinking, barring their psychic link with the Alpha. But Angrboda - Eve, whatever - was the Mother of Monsters, and it was instinct to refer to her as such.

"Anything." The same vampire said.

"I need your blood." Angrboda replied. "Enough to paint a sigil."

The vampires tripped over themselves to offer blood to her. Of course, they didn't have real blood, just black congealed muck, but it was still spreadable.

Angrboda took what she was given, daubing the wall of the warehouse with the rotten blood from the vampires' forearms, creating an elaborate sigil copied perfectly from the Purgatory book.

One last piece. Being incorporeal as she'd left Purgatory, she hadn't been able to bring anything of her partner's to summon them with. Just Angrboda's memories of him.

She pressed one delicate hand against the sigil and thought of him as the congealed blood started to glow.

_Blood of the species, a piece of the individual_... She'd done it right. She knew she had.

Where he was, though, was a whole different issue.

-O.O-

"Steve." Tony gasped, having just stabbed a djinn on the way and nearly been poisoned in the process.

"Mm?" Steve said distractedly.

"Where'd you get all these lambs?" Tony asked.

They were in an old freezing-works, where they were keeping a few lambs while others had had their throats slit and were being drained for blood. Needing lamb's blood to kill djinn had been a problem at first, but somehow they'd solved it.

"A fellow hunter's cousin has sheep. Apparently he didn't mind losing a few for the good of Brooklyn." Steve replied.

Things had been strained between Tony and Steve ever since Tony had chosen Loki. Steve didn't quite get Loki, considering how opposite their personalities were, and couldn't really understand why Tony liked him so much. The way Steve saw it, Tony had only picked Loki for the good of his libido - though as of late, since Steve had seen how depressed Tony had been (and how much he'd drank) after Loki's death, he was beginning to understand. However, they were still both_ trying_.

One day they'd be okay again. For now, they acted like they were fine.

"Good. Look, I pinned a couple of demons down in town, and turns out they're shit scared of my new dart gun. One of them told me that a bunch of the killings across the country aren't coincidences, they're all linked and they're all done by monsters, and I want to try and get some info out of a djinn so I can investigate further." Tony said.

"Well, if you can catch one, it's all yours." Steve sighed. "But I won't endanger my people by making them bring one in alive. It's up to you."

Real helpful.

"Could I borrow a cup of lamb's blood, then, sweetheart?" Tony asked. "I bet _they_ won't like a dart gun either."

* * *

**A/N: **Erm...the original conversation between Amora and Malekith was accidentally seriously overinundated with sexual tension. And then I reread it and I was like 'holy shit I can't post that they're not even a pairing!'

But I ship them slightly now. Just in this !verse. Even with the rewritten conversation.


	4. The Savage Jaw Of 1984

**A/N: **Long chapter is looooong!

And yeah, the Bowie references crawled into this one a bit much.

And, warning for Dark!Loki, but not too much of it.

* * *

**Chapter 3: The Savage Jaw Of 1984**

_We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when_  
_Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend_  
_Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes_  
_I thought you died alone, a long long time ago_

_The Man Who Sold The World -_ David Bowie

In California, in a sleepy town with a convenience store, a couple of shitty motels and a gas station, behind the few empty lots and behind a bland residential area, there was a sparse forest, parched by the vicious summer.

Under a particular tree, there was a crudely made cross that had intrigued the few people who'd walked through there.

However, they hadn't been curious enough to investigate further, even though the area where the dirt had been dug up was human-sized.

They may have gotten a scare, however, when a large, pale hand suddenly protruded from the dirt, shortly followed by the rest of the person.

Though it wasn't a human.

Loki Laufeyson, vampire, liar, and escape artist extrodinaire, was back, bitches.

The first thing he noticed was that it was nighttime, danger time, and he immediately took advantage of a tree - which equaled safety - and in a few quick movements was up a tall, dry specimen, clinging to a strong branch.

Off the ground was safer. It was encoded into his brain.

Once instinct had said its bit, Loki's humanity kicked in and told him to start thinking.

He was alive. Angrboda had retrieved him from Purgatory. He could get revenge on Amora. He could apologise to Thor and Tony.

Tony was first. He had to find Tony.

Loki needed a phone. And to get a phone, he needed to head to town.

Moving swiftly, he scrambled to the end of his branch, leaping off and grabbing the next tree before the branch buckled, jumping like a capuchin through the trees towards town.

When he neared the buildings closest to the forest, in this case a mechanic's, he jumped, grabbed the guttering, and hoisted himself onto the roof with ease. Then he darted across and lowered himself to the ground. The mechanic's would probably have a phone somewhere.

It was pretty simple to use one of the several knives he'd brought from Purgatory to jimmy open a particularly badly-designed lock and break in.

-O.O-

If you've ever experienced anything like the Chinese Water Torture, you know how agonising the slow _drip drip drip_ can be.

For the djinn that was unhappily bound tight and writhing for escape, the sound of a lamb's corpse dripping blood into a bucket for collection was just as bad. It boded badly. She could just see the lamb in the corner of her vision.

"So, sweetheart. I've got a lot of blood and a lot of time." Tony said finally, having already let the djinn stew for about twenty minutes.

"What do you want?!" She gasped. "Let me go!"

"I will let you go. Unscathed. You just have to explain something to me." Tony was talking in his interrogation voice, so calm and soothing it was unsettling.

The djinn's lip wobbled a little. "What is it?"

"Why have there been mass killings of a number of young men and women, all born around twenty-eight years ago, all killed by monsters, and a large number of their parents killed by demons?" Tony asked. Bruce had really done his research, digging all those links up. Nobody would probably have noticed the pattern in the recent chaos, not without that demon's help and Bruce's databases.

The djinn trembled. "I can't-"

"You can." Tony soothed. "Come on. Your people killed another of these special guys in Hoboken. It was definitely djinn. What, you got a problem with 1984? Been reading Orwell? Listening to Bowie?"

"The All-Mother sent a message from Purgatory to her dragons, she wanted the special children dead." The djinn squeaked. She was only a slight woman without her tattooing and freaky djinn looks. "We have to obey the All-Mother."

"Eve?" Tony asked and the djinn nodded frantically. That name twice in one night. It wasn't a coincidence. "Why are they 'special children'? Why did she want them dead?"

The djinn took a deep breath. "I don't know the reason why they're special, but they have demon blood in them, just a little bit. I don't know how it got there or why it's only people born in that year. It just is. And the All-Mother wanted them dead. So we did."

Tony frowned. Demon blood? Special children? He didn't understand it, no matter how his genius intellect strained. Why were there demon children and why did Eve hate them so? But the djinn had more information he could get. "You said Eve can get messages out of Purgatory. Elaborate."

"It's - it's just to her dragons. They're closest to her. And not always." The djinn stuttered.

Tony thought about that. "Nothing more you can tell me about the special children? Or Eve? Do you know anything about Lorelei, Malekith, or Amora?"

She shook her head. "Nothing you don't know. They're the big boss demons."

"Have you ever heard of a vampire named Loki Laufeyson?" Tony asked.

"Not for years. Please, Stark, I don't know anything." She pleaded.

Just then, Tony's cellphone rang. "Steve!" He called. "Finish up here. Don't kill her. She's been helpful."

The djinn breathed a sigh of relief as Tony answered. Maybe it was Thor or Natasha or Clint finally?

"Stark speaking."

"Tony." A voice breathed.

An English voice. Low and smooth. Tony kicked himself for wishing it was Loki. In the two weeks after Loki's death, Tony had seen him everywhere, every accent, every dark head of hair, every green glint. The instinct had faded somewhat, but it was still there.

"Who is this?" Tony asked harshly.

"It is me, Tony. It's Loki." The voice said, full of untold emotion.

Tony actually dropped his phone, like some stupid cliche. He fumbled and recaught it, but he dropped it nonetheless. "_What?!_"

"Loki Laufeyson." Loki answered. "It's me, Tony, it is."

"How-" Tony began, then crushed down his hope. "Prove it."

Loki gave a low hum and said "Your anti-possession tattoo is on your left buttcheek and you love when I sink my fingernails into it during sex."

"Holy shit, it really is you!" Tony said, shocked. "No - yes - where are you, I need to be there now!"

In his excitement, he'd flapped a hand at Steve, excused himself from the warehouse and marched out to his car.

"California. The same town I died in." Loki answered succintly. "I broke into a mechanic's to use the phone, I imagine the silent alarm has already gone off."

"How-" Tony started, but the phone made a woosh sound, and in the background Tony heard a siren and a breaking window. Then nothing. Then voices that weren't Loki's.

So the police had arrived and Loki had bailed out a window. Of course. He always did have a flair for drama.

_He's alive!_ Tony thought excitedly, _I knew he could do it! I just need to get to Cali from here...oh shit._

Because that was about 2,800 miles. Two day's solid driving, with no sleep. And he wanted to be there now.

Good thing Stark Industries had its secondary base in New York, and there was a private jet available to its CEO... he could be there in four hours if he tweaked his interpretation of a few laws.

-O.O-

The race to California wasn't just being done by Tony. Clint and Natasha were coming from Oregon, a 13 hour drive, high-tailing it away from the destroyed monastery. If they were lucky, they could do the drive in less.

They had the mission of the angels to carry out.

Problem was, Loki didn't trust either of them and never had. Of course, it wasn't without reason; they had tried to kill him shortly after they'd first met. But Loki's inherent distrustfulness and ability to look through lies meant that wriggling their way into his sphere wasn't going to work.

So as they drove, they brainstormed a list of Loki's weaknesses.

There was beheading, but killing someone wasn't the way to win their trust.

Dead man's blood, but again, torturing a liar just meant getting false information.

They couldn't do anything harmful, in fact. Hurting Tony or anything else was just going to incense Loki into fighting them.

Basically, they had to do it nicely. Actually earning his trust would take years, and spontaneous acts of goodwill would be seen through like glass.

In the end, they concluded that Loki's main weaknesses were his need to prove he was smarter than everyone, and his dick.

Because didn't this whole thing start when Tony and Loki slept together?

And Natasha verified she'd caught Loki sneakily glancing at her breasts and ass on occasion. Perfecto. Bisexual vampires. Who would've guessed it?

Natasha herself had much experience in the art of seduction - when you looked like her, it was a useful weapon.  
And thus the plans were laid.

-O.O-

Tony was fairly certain he'd never been more determined to go somewhere than he was then to get to California.

Getting the plane ready, flying, touching down and heading home was done in five hours. Then he grabbed a car - his Chrysler still in Brooklyn - and drove out of town as fast as possible. He could pay a few fines. It was worth it.

Seven hours after his phone had rung, Tony was back in the same town he'd buried Loki in.

The most interesting thing had been a call he'd received while his plane - Thor had described what he'd seen to him. Tony was willing to bet his life savings that the girl was Eve and the creatures had indeed been dragons. He'd also gotten a call from Clint and Natasha; the angels had contacted them! This was amazing! The duo had been a little vague as to what they'd been told to do, but the sighting of Malekith and Amora had brightened Tony despite the destruction. Something was happening, the angels were stepping in, they could win this!

But he had far more important things to do. Yes, Loki was just as important as saving the world. Particularly because who knew what information he could have about the increase in monster attacks.

Or perhaps Tony was being selfish. Probably the latter.

Dawn was making itself known as Tony finally arrived. Autumn was here, and the town's foliage was sparse. Assuming Loki would be near where Tony had buried him, he drove through town to the dry forest he'd left his love in that time ago.

Leaving the car by the side of the road, Tony ventured to the tall tree Loki had been buried under. The dirt was disturbed. Finally, some physical confirmation! Tony had been worried this had been some stage of grief no one had told him about. You know, hallucinations and hearing voices and whatnot.

"Loki?" He called tentatively. "Sunshine? You here?"

There was an almost silent rustle.

"Tony." A voice said right next to Tony's head.

Tony yelped in shock and leapt away to see Loki hanging upside down from a branch. How he'd gotten there without making a sound, Tony didn't know.

"Loki." He breathed, looking over his lover as he flipped down from the tree and stood thinking appraisingly.

Loki looked different. Tony couldn't quite put his finger on how, exactly.

Was it his different clothes? Loki had new pants and a jacket around his head to keep the sun off, and several knives in his waistband, but that wasn't it. He was splattered with blood, too, but that wasn't it either.

It was the way he carried himself. Gone was Loki's casual, almost mocking swagger that spoke of playful insubordination. Now he stood in a loose fighting stance, like he was in a war zone, ready to lash out at any moment with the many arms he was carrying.

And then there was his eyes. They didn't twinkle mischieviously, they burned. And it scared Tony.

Right then, Tony had no idea what to say. The vampire he was looking at was different from who he'd buried. How was he supposed to greet him? Never mind the circumstances behind Loki's death in the first place.

"You're wearing my jacket." Loki began.

"I am." Tony replied awkwardly. "It smells like you."

"Does it now." Loki said, slinking towards Tony until they were face to face.

There was a very, very pregnant pause. Then Loki lunged forward and hugged Tony desperately, pulling at his jacket like he'd never see him again. "I am so sorry. I was an idiot, I can admit that, for ever believing any of the things that led me to this forest."

"S'okay." Tony said, feeling tears spring to his eyes as he squeezed the bony vampire tightly. "We're both idiots. Geniusy idiots."

Loki gave a choked laugh at that and they just stood there for a few minutes, holding the other to confirm they were really there.

Finally Tony pulled away and gave Loki his leather jacket so he could come out of the shade. "How did you get out?" He asked as he led Loki back to the car.

"Tony, I swear on what is worthy in my life I will tell everything that has happened since we last met. My promise can be taken to the bank. But now I need sleep and perhaps a shower." Loki said, and Tony agreed, he looked wasted.

"Okay, but you have to tell me. No silver-tongued wiggling out of it. I need to know." Tony said firmly.

Loki nodded seriously. No jokes, no mocking, nothing dirty about the Silvertongue nickname.

Tony was worried.

"Just - give me the short answer." Tony said as they got in the car. Loki raised an eyebrow at the lack of the Chrysler but didn't acknowledge it.

"I have made a few allies." Loki shrugged. "Going into any more detail requires quite the explanation. Do you know of Eve?"

Eve. The third time someone had mentioned her in 24 hours. It wasn't a coincidence.

"Yeah, she's come up a bit." Tony said.

"She retrieved me from Purgatory. We met there and spoke of Amora's coming plans, and agreed action must be taken." Loki replied.

"Great! So you're helping me? I mean, we're on the same side and working together?" Tony said excitedly.

"It seems so." Loki smiled warmly. "Just like old times. Thank you, Tony, for accepting me back."

"There wasn't any question, Sunshine. I'll always come for you."

"Come for me, will you?" Loki grinned lasciviously. "I should certainly hope so."

Tony felt a little better with that. Loki was just tired, was all. Nothing wrong.

They checked into a motel - a different one to the one they'd been in last time - and Loki took a quick shower and wore the clothes Tony had brought for him.

Then they just sat down on the bed, not knowing what to say, not knowing where the boundaries were now.

Tony decided to speak up. "I missed you so much, you know. I mean, the couple of weeks after you died were the worst of my life. I drank more than I've ever drank and I tried to pick up this girl at some bar and ended up crying on the trip to the motel, so she put me to bed and left." He took a deep breath and continued, wondering if saying so much was a mistake. "Thor and I did everything, but the only lead we had got taken from us."

"Thoughts of you kept me sane." Loki countered. "Living down there, it takes everything you have."

Green eyes met brown and then they were kissing, holding onto each other like they'd never see each other again, and after all they'd been through it wasn't an irrational fear. Despite Loki's apparent exhaustion, they tore clothing and sucked skin desperately, needing to hold on.

Tony knew this was wrong. He knew he was wasting time, and he should get the information from Loki now, let him sleep in the car on the way to wherever they were going next. But the world was ending. Loki could be very different, have a secret agenda. He could die tomorrow. Everyone could be dead tomorrow.

Who could really blame him for wanting to hold onto Loki, feel Loki's mouth on him, act like everything was as it was before Amora turned up?

This was more tender than the usual borderline BDSM bitefest, though. Loki was gentle, careful, and quieter than usual. Hell, so was Tony. That was, until their climax, where Loki sank his fangs in and Tony screamed.

As he drifted off to sleep Tony knew that the future was going to go horribly, horribly wrong. He just had to hold on to Loki while he could.

-O.O-

"Where the fuck are we supposed to go?" Clint said for the third time.

Tony's description of the town, 'a couple of hours out of Malibu', was not nearly enough for them to go on.

"Do we pray? Get advice from angels?" Clint continued. "Like, right here in the car? How do you pray in a car?"

The slightest woosh and then Clint nearly crashed the car.

There was an angel in the back seat.

Clint pulled over and turned around. "You an angel?"

"I'm an angel of the lord, yes." The angel said mildly.

He didn't look like an angel, or so Clint thought. He looked more like a lawyer or maybe, just maybe, a holy tax accountant. But not an angel, what with the tidy suit, combover hair and gentle voice.

"What happened to Fury?" Natasha asked.

"An archangel's time is not to be wasted by answering every prayer." The angel said. "My name is Phillip of the Cowl."

"Of the Cowl? Seriously?" Clint asked. "But hey, nice to meet you. Where's Loki?"

Phillip, Phil, whatever, simply gave them directions and left. Turns out they were pretty close to where they needed to be. Nice guy.

-O.O-

Loki stirred and was immediately slammed with hunger pangs and the dizzying rush of bloodlust. He needed sustenance, now.

A quick look out the window confirmed it was the early afternoon, and the sun was bright.

The only options for food without exposure would be to feed off Tony - a no-no without his express permission, or during sex, whatever - or to feed off someone else in the motel building so he could stay under the balcony shelter.

Neither was one that would make him any friends. So he was going into the sunlight.

After wrapping up and slathering sunblock on potential bare bits, Loki left a note on the inside of the door and slinked away to hunt.

-O.O-

Of all the things Loki was expecting on his satisfied saunter back through town, Natasha Romanov was not one of them. He actually managed a double-take when he saw that distinctive figure standing on the main street.

Whyever she was here, it couldn't be good.

Unfortunately, she saw him before he could take evasive action, and leaping onto the rooftops now would've just been rude.

"Loki!" She shouted before elegantly quickwalking over.

As soon as she get close enough, Loki scanned her. She looked normal, wearing her usual combat clothes, but was it wishful thinking or was everything a little more...unzipped?

She smelt of fear, just slightly, though it was well covered up. Excellent.

"Miss Romanov." Loki murmured coolly. "What _coincidence_ brings you here?"

"Tony told me you were back." Natasha lied smoothly, taking a guess that Tony and Loki had discussed fuck all so far. She was pretty much right. "Clint and I had a...disagreement. I figured you and Tony were the best people to come to."

"Why?" Loki was sceptical. He could smell a lie, somewhere.

"We've had our issues, Loki, but I trust Tony. He's a good man."

Okay, now Loki was certain. There were lies in here somewhere. But he'd learn more from playing along, just for a tiny while, until he got out of public. "He is."

"Everyone was rather surprised when we heard you were alive." Natasha said. "How'd you do it?"

"Trade secret, my darling." Loki purred, turning on his heel to wander through the back streets to their hotel room. He wasn't really intending to go there, but it seemed non-threatening to act like they had somewhere to go. "Now, seeing as it's fairly obvious you're lying, how did you find out I was alive?"

She looked uncomfortable, but she had nowhere to go. Not in an alleyway with a vampire infintely faster than her.

"Come on, Romanov. Lie to me again. See if it works." Loki grinned wolfishly.

Natasha schooled her expression carefully. Part confident, part alluring, part teasing. "I only lied to get closer to you." She countered, a hand gently resting on his shoulder.

Too little way too late. Loki looked innocent, running his large hands down her arms, seeming drawn in. They were chest to chest now, and from the alleyway entrance it would have looked so sensual, but it wasn't. One of his hands, his right, easily gripped her dainty wrists and held them together like a vice.

"Who..." Loki said, making sure she could smell the blood on his breath, "...brought you here?"

The Russian woman struggled against him, testing his strength. No go. Fuck. "Is it important?" She deadpanned.

Loki's left hand trailed up to her neck and pinned it against the wall. "Very." He said thoughtfully. "Now, you've clearly got instruction from a higher power than Earth's boldest and brightest. Eve and I told no one. You're not working for my team, Purgatory, because I'm top of the grapevine and I heard nothing of it. Even Barton isn't stupid enough to work for Hell. Therefore..." Loki looked at her appraisingly and inhaled slightly as if trying to scent the angel mojo on her. "...Heaven."

"No-" Natasha started, seeing from the twisted look in Loki's eyes that that information meant doom, but he cut her off by slamming her head backwards into the wall behind her.

"_Liar._" He snarled.

She slipped a hand from his vicegrip, snatching the knife from her belt to stab him with it. The blade sank into his abdomen and he cried out in pain, instinctively twisting the arm he still held until bones twisted and Natasha made a noise of panic.

Yanking the knife out and tossing it away, Loki regained his grip on her wrists and shoved her into the wall again, forcing the muscles in her shoulders to lock up.

"I should kill you now, _cunt_." Loki breathed hotly.

Without Loki really paying much attention to what he was doing, his left hand wrapped itself in Natasha's hair, canting her head to the side and exposing her smooth white neck.

He wanted so much right now. Feeding on animal blood wasn't the same. Loki still ached for the taste of humanity, even now right after hunting.

There was nothing stopping him. He could do it. Drain her, kill her, hide the corpse until he and Tony left town and no one would know. Natasha would be out of his way and he'd be satisfied.

It would taste so fucking good.

Natasha could feel the tension in the moment; she'd be stupid not to. Pinned unmovingly against a wall with the superstrength of the same vampire who was looking at her like she was dinner, and she could feel fear rising.

She didn't usually get scared. Ever. It took a lot to do it. Even freeing Steve, she'd been calm. But she was afraid of Loki now. And he knew it. The bastard could probably smell it.

When he saw the fear in Natasha's eyes, Loki let her go. He was better than that. Of course, he had to do _something_. No easy escapes today.

He leaned closer, their noses nearly touching as he growled "This is my bargain with your masters, you mewling quim. Tell them to scurry back to their side of paradise. Tell them Purgatory is coming." Then Loki seemed to relax, letting a scarily boyish smile fall across his face. "Let me make it plain; they've got to make way for the Homo Superior."

As Loki let Natasha go, presumably to scurry as he'd said, she realised that despite the harm she'd just been in she'd gained some information. After quickwalking to the end of the alley, she turned, grinned cheekily and said "Thank you, for your cooperation."

Despite seeing all the walls of the trap, Loki had walked in anyway. "_Fuck._" He groaned.


	5. Golden Years

**A/N: **Hello! Considering this part is only expected to have nine chapters, we're nearly halfway through. I've planned out the chapters and you're gonna hate me. But I can work with that.

* * *

**Chapter 4: Golden Years**

_Come out of the garden, baby,_  
_You'll catch your death in the fog._

_Diamond Dogs_ - David Bowie

"Tony." Loki murmured. "Wake up, dearest, you mustn't sleep too long."

Tony stirred awake slowly, smiling a little at seeing that he hadn't imagined the last 24 hours and that Loki was still there.

"How much have you been sleeping recently?" Loki said concernedly.

"Not enough." Tony groaned, peeling himself out of bed. "You smell like blood. Been for a hunt?"

"Well, yes." Loki said. "Get up, we have a lot of things to work through."

Tony couldn't help himself; when he sat up, he kissed Loki, all open-mouthed and messy, before licking his lips and saying "Is it wrong I've _really_ missed the taste of you all bloody?"

"You should probably keep that one to yourself, yes." Loki snickered.

One thing Tony had noticed was that Loki had lost part of his oddly precise way of speaking. Of course, he was still sophisticated, but his speech was just more...common...than it had been.

"Eh, I don't care." Tony said, getting up to plonk down on a wooden chair. "Okay, enough stalling. Give it to me."

"I've already done that." Loki said innocently.

"Seriously, Sunshine." Tony looked the business now, all play gone from his face.

"Okay." Loki said resignedly, pulling up another chair to face Tony. "Shall we begin?"

Tony nodded.

With a sigh, Loki got his explaining face on, leaning forward in the chair.

"There are four major realms." Loki began, ticking them off on his slim fingers. "You know of them; Earth, the obvious physical world; Purgatory, a physical world existing on a spiritual plain; Hell, a semi-conceptual world existing on the same plain; and Heaven, which is, when boiled down, merely a concept, as are its inhabitants. These forces are all at war, though technically Heaven is the genesis of each realm.

"But what's interesting, is that Purgatory and Earth are symbiotic. Monster kills human, human kills monster. They_ need_ each other."

"What?" Tony said confusedly. "How do _we_ need_ them_?"

"_Us_, Tony. I am one of them. And it's simple. There has to be a monster under the bed, or humans would not have developed as they have." Loki explained. "Anyway. Hell's current goal is fairly simple. They wish to release the devil, who controlled them in times past, and to do this they must break the seals imprisoning him there. You may have heard of them. It's the last one you need to watch out for. Amora's death, at a certain church that coincidentally was built on top of the physical entrance to the devil's Cage. Being what she is, the first demon ever created, she is extremely hard to kill. Have you heard of the special children?"

"Yes! Yes, I have." Tony's tone was triumphant.

"Do you know what they are?" Loki asked.

"Um...no."

"They are Malekith's solution to the issue of killing Amora to break the seal. Long story short, each child was given a drop of demon blood as a baby, and if tempered and honed correctly their powers would be enough to kill the first demon. By ordering the children killed, Angrboda - that's Eve to you - has effectively cut of the devil. There is only one child left, and it will not last long.

"However, there is still the issue of Heaven to deal with."

"What's wrong with Heaven?" Tony said in surprise.

"You don't find anything wrong with pushy, superioristic, emotionless 'angels' who take what they want, when they want, and meddle with our affairs?" Loki frowned.

"But they're angels." Tony protested. "They're the good guys."

"Angel is just a name, Tony. Just because I buy a 'Rolex' in a seedy New York alleyway, does not mean I actually have a Rolex." Loki explained. "They are creatures, just like you and me. And Earth does not need their interference. Angrboda says - and I quite agree - that they can be repelled."

Tony was far from convinced. He didn't really know exactly how much sanity Loki had managed to bring out of Purgatory, or how much of what he was saying was true. It wasn't like Loki didn't have a slanderous streak a mile long. Or maybe Loki thought it was true and Angrboda was lying to him. And in any case, despite what Loki said, these were _angels_. The good guys. The Allies against the Axis or whatever.

"Repelled? How?" Tony said, determined to at least get as much information as possible.

"People think, of the three supernatural forces, the monsters are the weakest." Loki continued. "That's incorrect. Hell is the weakest. They only have demons and one archangel. Purgatory, we're tough. We have Angrboda, who can temporarily strip an angel of their powers, we have huge numbers, the ability to make more, and the Old Ones."

"Old Ones?" Tony asked.

"They have many names. Leviathans, for example. Get Bruce to research them. They're the oldest monster in the universe, older even than angels, and fully capable of eating angels, demons, anything. And they all bow to Angrboda." Loki looked excited now, which always made his bloodlust kick off, so his eyes were dilated and he was clicking his teeth. "We have an army, Tony. The angels can be forced off Earth."

"So what happens to the humans?" Tony asked. "When the monsters rule Earth, what happens to the Earthlings?"

"As I previously said, Earth and Purgatory have a symbiosis, limited by Hell and Heaven's constant interferences. With them out of the way, the symbiotic relationship would be complete."

"Yeah, but what does that _mean?_" Tony insisted.

Loki thought for a moment, and the more spiteful part of Tony pointed out that Loki was probably trying to spin it in the most human-friendly way. "Things would continue much as they are now, only with increased populations of monsters. Hunting would still be practiced. I'd imagine the existence of monsters would become common knowledge, and perhaps a lobby for monster rights would be formed. Life would be _better._"

And Tony was being swayed by Loki's words, he was. Loki was a storyteller and spinner of lies. He could make anyone believe anything, and really, Tony was too easy since Loki knew how to play him.

"So what's your plan of attack?" Tony asked.

"Hell first. They're already falling, and we have Heaven's support in that battle. Then Heaven, though our main priority is the protection of Earth and humanity. Then? Then we coexist peacefully without interference." Loki grinned savagely at the end. "See, Tony? It's all sorted out. A perfect paradise."

It was then that Tony decided that yes, Loki was bugfuck crazy. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're my partner and lover and I want you to be safe." Loki shrugged. "Also, I assumed you'd be willing to be the voice of Earth."

"You're making me the representative of the planet." Tony said in shock. "Wait, how do _you_ fit in in all this? And after all these years, why's Purgatory suddenly kicking off now?"

"I'm Angrboda's planner. Also, I have a lot of human contacts here and there, yourself included. All of her lieutenants - the Alphas of her monster races - have very little association with the people we plan to ally ourselves with. The humans. As to the timing, well, there's no point in starting a revolution when the oppressors are comfortable, yes?"

Tony sat in the stiff wooden chair and comtemplated all this information for a minute. It was pretty simple: he could ally with any of the three forces. He wouldn't touch Hell with a ten-foot-pole (which begged the question, what would he touch with a ten-foot-pole?) and he was getting more and more suspicious of Heaven's motives by the minute. But what about Purgatory? Every word from Loki's mouth could be a lie.

"So, what do you say?" Loki asked.

"No." Tony said without hesitation.

Loki's face fell and he averted his eyes in disappointment. "Any particular reason?"

"Lo'." Tony said softly, taking Loki's bony hands. "You have to see my perspective. I honestly don't know where the next punch is coming from. I don't know who's lying and I don't know anything about Heaven."

"So you don't trust me." Loki said miserably.

"Of course I do, Sunshine. But I need more information before I can make a decision, okay? I'm trying to protect Earth."

"I need to find Angrboda so we can move to the next phase of the plan." Loki sighed. "Will you join me?"

Tony felt a sharp pang of heartache. Here was Loki, the vampire he loved asking sincerely for help, and he had to say no. Because going with Loki was tantamount to saying yes, and he just couldn't do that.

"I can't." Tony's tone was resigned. "I'm sorry, Sunshine, but I just can't. I have to think about Earth first."

"So be it." Loki steeled himself. "We will part ways. But I promise it won't be for long. I will find you, Tony. Even if it's after the war."

"Agreed." Tony felt like he'd been deflated. That was what you got for waking up hopeful.

They packed their gear in silence. Loki pickpocketed someone's keys and stole himself a car, taking his trunk, scimitar and jacket, and reclaiming his silver knife off Tony.

"Thank you, Tony." Then Loki pulled a stubby metal knife from the armoury on his waistband. "This is for you."

Tony looked at the knife. It was wooden-handled, with a serrated, curved blade perfect for stabbing. The main defining feature of the knife was the strange inscriptions on the flat of the knife. "It's nice. Well-balanced." Tony said appreciatively.

"That's not the defining feature." Loki smirked. "It can kill demons."

"Holy shit, really?" Tony turned the knife over and over in his hands.

"I haven't tested it yet, but it was Angrboda's, and it was forged in Hell itself." Loki said.

Tony slid the blade into his belt. "Thanks, Loki. Hey, just cause we're going our seperate ways doesn't mean we're never gonna see each other again. Don't be a stranger. Text me if you need anything."

"Oh, I will." Loki said. They stood by Loki's illegally acquired car, wondering how they were actually supposed to leave each other when they'd just reacquainted.

Taking the initiative - or perhaps to hide the fact he was nearly crying - Tony pulled Loki into a bear hug, taking a minute to feel those bony planes of flesh while he could.

Eventually Loki pulled Tony from his chest, kissed him on the forehead, and left.

"Fuck." Tony groaned, leaning against his own car.

-O.O-

As Malekith had correctly pointed out, there was only one special child left. He'd also said, to quote, 'she's skinny and dumb and weak'.

Said girl was not dumb. However, she did have the other failings described of her.

While demon's blood usually enhances the user, it hadn't done much for her, just give her the vague ability to sense the upcoming weather.

Asthmatic, underweight, and not exactly delighted to learn that she was being trained to serve as the devil's bitch, this special child was not feeling so special.

When Angrboda's campaign against the special children had started, it took Amora's forces a while to gain traction, and in the end Madeleine had been the only special child they could nab alive.

Despite Malekith's conviction that Madeleine was not strong enough, she was being fed, exercised and forced to sip demon blood for the time being.

All courtesy of the half-dozen demons that were keeping her captive.

Madeleine was Amora's last chance at freeing her father, and therefore was a project that the Enchantress was watching carefully.

Like today. Amora was paying a little visit, walking up the driveway of the commandeered farmhouse, when it happened.  
The girl tried to escape. Amora could see Madeleine, smashing her second-story window with a chair, trying to climb out onto the roof, fighting for breath. No problem, so long as her jailers got there fast.

There was a feral screech from the sky that made Amora's head whip around in alarm.

Soaring down from the overcast sky was what resembled an enormous bat, except it had the all-mouth head of a feeding Leviathan.

Eve's work. It had to be.

Amora held up a hand and prepared to blast the_ thing_ out of the sky. Then she realised the goal of the Levia...bat and panicked.

Before she could do anything, the Leviabat had opened its many-fanged jaws and swallowed Madeleine from the roof, neat as could be.

The shout of rage from Amora's mouth could have felled the fainter-hearted, and she fired her white light blast and seared the creature from the sky, but it was too late. Her plans were fucked over.

Laughter came from behind her. Amora turned to find Angrboda sniggering to herself in victory.

Another white blast fired, but didn't hurt Angrboda even slightly.

"You!" Amora snarled. "You've ruined it! How did you even know?"

"I'm a tough bitch." Angrboda smirked. "Don't bother fighting me, Amora, you're not going to get anywhere."

"There are other ways." Amora insisted.

"All of which I will _make_ unavailable to you. Easily." Angrboda said victoriously. "You know, killing Loki really was the best thing you've ever done for my people."


	6. Smiling Through The Darkness

**A/N: **So. Sorry it's late; I'm a little snowed under by schoolwork, and I just started an original work. But, heeeeeere it is, as strange as ever.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Perhaps You're Smiling Now, Smiling Through The Darkness**

Tony was no damsel in distress. Never had been. Just because Loki was working on something without him, didn't mean he was going to just lie down and do nothing.

It was Tony Stark, not Tony Swan.

He thoughtfully fiddled with the knife on his belt. Fuck, he wanted to test it. Ever since he was a kid, if you gave him something new, he'd be all over it. Instead of weakening as he got older, the need to explore had grown.

Ever since he'd met Loki, Tony had spent a lot more time away from the workshop. And he mourned the joy of creation.

Tony called JARVIS back in Malibu. "Jarv, man. Any demons in the area?"

"There are three recorded sitings within fifty miles, sir. One of these is likely to be a population sized from two to six creatures. The other two are individuals." JARVIS replied.

Tony thought about that. Individual demon sightings would probably be someone on the move. The population? If Tony reloaded his dart gun and kept sharp, he'd have a chance to test his toy. Loki's toy. Angrboda's toy.

"Tell me where, J-dawg." Tony said, smirking at the nickname. On the way, he'd run a call between the Avengers, let them know the latest. Then he could test out his supposed Pointy Stick Of Demon Doom.

JARVIS immediately sent directions to his phone before hanging up on Tony's request. It was an hour's drive. Time to call the others.

When everyone had made it to a phone - that was, Clint, Natasha, Steve, Thor and Bruce, no Lokis invited - Tony told them everything he'd learned in the last 24 hours.

That was a lie. He didn't tell them everything. He edited out the sex, though he was certain they picked up on it, and he edited Loki's story a little. The changes basically made Loki's plan sound more like Purgatory was going to help defeat Hell and then work out some kind of arrangement with the angels. Oh, and he missed out telling them about the knife. For some reason it felt like something he should keep to himself.

Natasha and Clint didn't believe a word of it. A word of anything helpful from Loki's side, anyway. They seemed angry at Loki, angrier than usual, and bluntly determined to believe in the angels.

Steve had to leave early - the fort was barely being held down. Clint and Natasha were coming to Malibu to meet Bruce for an info exchange face to face, and Thor, burdened with the news that Loki had delivered, was going on a 'personal endeavour', so Tony hung up and left them to their own. He had demons to hunt.

-O.O-

"Tony's lying to us about something." Natasha said as soon as Clint flicked the 'disconnect' button.

"I fully agree. Philly, you get all that?" Clint said, leaning over to the angel in the back seat.

Phillip of the Cowl, the pair had learned, was a somewhat low-tier angel despite his fancy name and was therefore not a source of guilt for Fury that the angel had spent the last several hours in a car.

Did he even breath? If he did, it was stealthy as _fuck._

Phil had seen Loki's threatening of Natasha, had watched Tony and Loki part ways, and had now heard all this. "Thank you, Clint, Natasha. You've done the Lord a great service. I'll have to leave you now. Be sure to pray if you have more information."

With a slight rustle and whoosh, he vanished.

"I'm going to learn to hate that with angels." Clint sighed.

-O.O-

JARVIS was right. Wasn't he always? There was a small group of demons, four of them, camping out in some random house, doing who knows what in the name of evil. It seemed a perfect opportunity for a field test.

A child, a man, and two women. So, some kind of twisted happy family that had met _The Exorcist._

Tony was hoping none of them would projectile vomit, cause come on, gross.

They were all sitting around the dinner table, discussing something, and Tony crouched by an open window.

He could hear them properly - they were talking about, of all things, Loki.

"I heard he's some kind of super vampire. With extra powers and everything." The little girl-demon said.

One of the women snorted. "My meatsuit's met him. He's just an ordinary bloodsucker; nothing extraordinary. Nothing a knife to the neck couldn't cure anyway."

Tony had stopped breathing. He knew that voice. It was the voice of the woman he'd hired for her tenacity, wanted for her beauty, loved for her spirit, and avoided for the rejection she'd eventually given him.

_Pepper._

Was this Skurge? Had Amora left an outpost here? Or was this a new demon? It didn't really matter; Pepper was here and possessed, and he was armed.

Drawing his dart gun, Tony dove to his feet and fired through the open window. After six shots, he'd hit all of them. He wasn't quite the marksman Clint was, but he wasn't bad either.

All the demons fell to the floor screeching. Tony awkwardly scrambled through the window, landing on his feet, immediately scanning the ground to see if his imagination hadn't been overly hopeful with his hearing of Pepper's voice.

One of the women was Pepper! He'd recognise her anywhere! Fuck, it had been a good time for finding the unfindable.

But he had to deal with the others first. Time to test the knife.

It was always hard killing a monster in human form, especially when they were possessed. Somewhere under the black eyes and dark spirit was a legitimate human being, wanting to be free.

Tony drew his knife and plunged it into the heart of the man.

With a weird flash of red playing across the spasming man's features, his eyes widened and the black wash faded to a bland brown.

_Did that work?_

It seemed like it. Tony's heart leaped; was this a way of killing demons? Could it be done? Was this really possible?

To test his hypothesis, he stabbed the screaming non-Pepper woman too, feeling a pang of guilt at taking her life, a feeling he'd mostly been able to suppress since the first monster he'd killed. There was the same red flash, and her eyes faded too as she stopped writhing abruptly. Peaceful.

He could kill demons.

Not wanting any more blood on his hands, Tony closed his eyes and remembered the exorcism ritual. _"Exorcziamus te..."_

As he spoke the last word, the shrieking demons, pained by both the saline holy water and the exorcism, burst from the Pepper and the little girl in a blast of black smoke. The girl went perfectly limp, and Tony scrambled to her side to check her pulse.

Nothing. The exorcism had been too much for her tiny frame.

Pepper gave a groan and rolled over, sounded pained.

"Pep!?" Tony exclaimed, diving the two metres over to her.

Her eyes were unfocused for a moment. The first thing she saw, free for the first time in two months, was Tony's face.

"Pepper, it's you, I knew I could find you." Tony gasped, scooping her up into his arms.

"Oh my god, Tony." Despite just regaining her senses, Pepper sounded teary. "Tony, you have no idea..."

"It's okay, you're okay now." He soothed, holding her closer. "Everything's okay. I'm here now."

After a few minutes just spent there, rocking back and forth as both of them tried to reorder themselves, Pepper tapped Tony on the back to get his attention.

"Wha-" Tony said, pulling her away so he could look at her face.

She kissed him. Pressed her small, soft, bloodstainless lips to his and brought a delicate hand up to his shoulder.

Bear in mind, Tony had loved Pepper. Still did. When he'd employed her, he'd found her physically beautiful, and after getting to know her, found her a beautiful person inside.

He'd asked her out. She'd turned him down. Several times. So this kiss was a few long years in the making.

Not able to help himself, he deepened the kiss. She smelt sweet despite her rough experiences, no trace of blood, and she was small and delicate and fit in his lap easily; not like a certain six-foot-two vampire.

Why did he keep comparing her to Loki? Pepper was different, she wasn't dangerous like he was, not crazy or scarred and why shouldn't he like her more?

Eventually the thoughts of Loki grew too much - he loved the vampire, goddamnit, and he was a slut, but not a cheat! - and he pushed her away.

"I am so fucking happy to have you back, Pep." Tony sighed. "Come on, we should head back to Malibu. I have a lot of things to catch you up on."

On the drive there, Tony started from scratch, letting her know everything that had happened in the last two months. Pepper was a good listener, asking the right questions at the right moments, and fuck, Tony had missed her.

-O.O-

Instead of waiting for Loki to come to her, Angrboda merely teleported into his car once Loki had been driving a few hours east.

"Glad to see you looking so alive." She smiled upon seeing him.

"I could say much the same for yourself." Loki said cheerily. "Now, Mother, what is the status of the special children?"

"I just killed the last one." Angrboda replied. "Amora was there. She went apoplectic."

"Oh, I bet she did. Now, adhering to the grand plan, what task would you have perform next?" Loki asked.

Angrboda thought about that for a minute. All pieces were falling into place, all her children were massing... "There's only one thing that needs doing at the moment, Loki." She replied. "It'll take all your cunning, but you're a smart man, you'll manage it."

Loki raised an eyebrow, running through the plan in his head. He'd reached the correct conclusion when Angrboda said "I need you to get an angel blade."

After Loki had acknowledged the task, Angrboda vanished, and he pulled over at a rest stop to contemplate exactly how he was going to do this.

She was right, a lot of cunning would have to go into this.

-O.O-

For whatever reason, the djinn invasion of Brooklyn had just suddenly...collapsed. They'd fallen back abruptly, vanished without a trace, and for all intents and purposes, actually left town.

Obviously, Steve was more than a little paranoid.

After cleaning up parts of the warehouse that were starting to stink from decomposing blood, Steve stumbled into his childhood home, had a shower, and was about to fall into bed when a voice interrupted him.

"Steve Rogers." It boomed.

Steve turned on his heel to see a large black man with a leather coat and eyepatch standing in his bedroom. He instantly snatched his knife up and demanded "Who are you?"

"I am the archangel Fury." The man, no, angel said.

Steve relaxed a little; the name and appearance did indeed match Clint and Natasha's description. "I'm honoured to be in your presence." He said.

Fury's blank face twisted into the slightest smile. "I'm here to ensure your cooperation, Rogers. Do you know, your companion Tony Stark is considering not aiding Heaven?"

For some reason, that didn't surprise Steve at all. "I'm sure he has a perfectly good-"

"Convince him." Fury deadpanned. "And keep the vampire away. Loki. Nothing good will come of their continued acquaintance."

Before Steve could reply, Fury had vanished.

"Well, he seems a little abrupt." Steve sighed before collapsing onto his bed and sleeping.


	7. Hold On To Anyone, Let Go Of Me

**A/N: **I am so, so sorry about the wait. I've got a severe wrist injury, which affects my fingers - I can't move them properly - and so pretty much no writing has been done in the last week. Which is why this chapter is so short. It took me a loooong time to write this out.

Also, I do apologise for my portrayal of Odin - in canon, I fully support the view of him as a caring but oblivious father who messed up a lot, but in this universe, he's different and he automatically discriminates against Loki because of his vampirism. Roll with it.

* * *

**Chapter 6: Hold On To Anyone, Let Go Of Me**

_Slowly, we get too good and too holy_  
_Helping one another, just a righteous brother_  
_Night time, get me back in the night time_  
_I don't want to be angel, just a little bit evil_  
_I feel the devil in me_

_Holy Holy_ - David Bowie

"Father." Thor said, addressing the white-haired man he'd come to visit.

"Thor." Odin replied sternly from his place in his armchair.

They hadn't spoken since the last argument, where Thor had pointed out that Loki had been alive and was now dead, and Odin basically said the Burison family would not play host to vampire parasites. Thor had been outraged.

"Loki yet lives." Thor commented. "He was saved from death by a supernatural force. He now has powerful allies intent on destroying Hell."

The look in Odin's eyes was the universal parenting look of _the child is a terror._ "Why do you assume I'm interested in the life of a _vampire?_"

In some ways, Thor didn't blame Odin. After all, his parents and one brother had been killed by a nest of vampires, and his other brother, Ve, had been converted. Odin had killed Ve himself. There was a deep, ingrained hatred of vampires in this family and in Odin especially. But Thor didn't believe Loki should have been treated the way he was, even if father and adopted son had often argued.

"Because he is your son, Odin." Thor replied.

Odin snorted. "A monster is not my son."

Thor looked disgusted. "If I were to become a son of Eve, would that make me any less of a Burison? I do not think so. Loki deserves your acceptance and support."

Odin said nothing, so Thor continued. "I come to you today, _father,_ because I wished to warn you of upcoming upheavals in the hunting world. While our relationship has been strained as of late, my leaving you in the dark is not what Mother would have wanted."

And that was Thor's trump card. The mention of their familial connection, of their deceased matriarch Frigga, was enough to have Odin sighing sadly and opening his mind to Thor's words. "Tell me about this danger, then."

Thor opened his mouth to spout a doctored version of Loki's tale. It really was turning into Chinese whispers.

-O.O-

Odin, despite his very human flaws, was still a source of good advice. He recommended trying to keep Thor's motley crew of hunters unified, rather than letting them stray off in different directions.

This was why Thor called Clint, Natasha, Tony, Bruce and Steve and asked them to meet in Tony's house in Malibu that evening.

Thor had considered inviting Loki; he'd thought about it a lot. But after hearing Clint and Natasha's aggression towards him? Perhaps it was safer to keep him away, for the good of the cohesion of the team.

They needed to talk, about their plans, about their fears, about _Loki._ Loki was the knife between them, where opinions were so harshly divided. That pretty vampire seemed to cause chaos and discord without even meaning to.

Steve promised to be there ASAP, after Tony gallantly offered him his Chrysler and said to not worry about speeding tickets, because Stark Industries would pay them. Steve declined and said he'd catch a public flight instead of driving for two days and being late anyway.

And so the plans were laid.

-O.O-

"Who is this?" Loki had started answering his phone with that harsh interrogative. Only humans had his phone number, and most of them he wouldn't trust if they bent over backwards and said Loki could drain them dry.

"It's Tony." The man said, and Loki smiled suddenly.

"Tony, dearest. What is it?" Loki said warmly.

"Er..." Tony, while moping around his Malibu house avoiding Pepper, had resolved to let Loki know the Avengers were meeting. Loki was one of them, right? Everything would be made better if everyone could just _talk_. "There's a thingie tonight."

"A thingie." Loki repeated in a deadpan. "Really."

"Sorry, I mean the Avengers are meeting tonight at my house. In Malibu. All of us. We're having a nice discussion and stuff." Tony explained.

"Ah. Am I invited?" Loki asked.

"Uh, yes. That's why I rang. Feel free to come. If you can get there, I guess; I mean, you're a busy guy." Tony felt oddly awkward now, like he was asking out his crush or something.

"I will see what can be done. Thank you, Tony." Loki said, and disconnected.

-O.O-

The meeting started badly. They all made it, sitting in Tony's meeting room around a large rectangular table. The division was obvious; Team Free Steve - Clint, Natasha and Steve - at one end and Thor and Tony at the other, with the more neutral Bruce and Pepper keeping the peace in the middle.

"I've been contacted." Steve announced. "Fury came to me."

"What did he say?" Bruce said, already taking notes on one of his many laptops.

"He said -" Steve's eyes flicked to Tony for a moment. "For us to keep away from Loki. He said Loki's dangerous."

"Fury's not wrong." Natasha noted. "The angel that's been in contact with us, Phillip said much the same thing."

Tony scowled. "There's nothing wrong with Loki. Of course the angels don't like him; he's a vampire and the angels are prejudiced. What a pile of shit."

"Don't talk about angels like that." Steve glowered.

"I'll talk about anyone however I feel like talking about them." Tony snapped right back.

Bruce hung his head in his hands. "See, this is where it all breaks down. We're not even a little bit unified. We're not a team, we're a time bomb."

"We'd be perfectly fine if it weren't for Loki." Clint noted.

"No, we wouldn't." Tony countered. "I'm not going to just jump on the angel boat 'cause they flap their wings around and glow a bit. Better to actually act with Earth's best interests in mind, right? Because if Loki's right-"

"He isn't." Clint cut in.

"-if Loki's right, Heaven doesn't give a flying fuck about any of us, not really." Tony finished.

"They're_ angels._" Natasha insisted.

"Yeah, and history was written by the victors." Tony frowned. "The only sources we have of angelic goodness is human writings, and humans are pretty easily influenced by the idea of a higher power. Look at Jonestown! I'm not about to climb on board only to get stabbed in the back!"

"Tony is right." Thor said solemnly. "We have no reason to trust."

Natasha took a deep breath, before saying "What's our alternative? If you guys are right, and they don't care about us, then allying with them will at least save our skins. Rebelling would just get us all killed in the long run."

Tony thought about that for a moment. "That's where Loki is, too. If he turns against Angrboda, he's got Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and Earth all wanting him dead, and if he gets caught, he'll be tortured for the rest of eternity in the monster afterlife, without a single chance of Angrboda bringing him back. He's actually trapped. I can't believe I didn't see that."

"What, so we should all just kiss and hug him and tell him he'll be okay?" Clint said dryly.

Tony pulled the finger at him. "No, asshole, I'm saying a little empathy might go a long way."

"Sympathy for the devil." A smooth voice said. "'_Please allow me to introduce myself; I'm a man of wealth and taste_.'"

Everyone whirled in shock at the same time to see Loki leaning against a floor-to-ceiling window, grinning like a crazy cat at his grand entrance.

"Loki!" Everyone barring Tony gasped in alarm.

Tony himself said "How the fuck did you get in here without us noticing?"

Loki just shrugged. "I have my ways."


	8. Get Off Of My Cloud

**A/N:** Well, my hand is unnaturally stiff, but I can type, and this chapter wrote itself. Woo! Plus I owe you for the shortness of last time. Three more chapters left, a big cliffhanger, and then a break from writing for me!

* * *

**Chapter 7: Get Off Of My Cloud**

Loki's eyes flicked around the room, seeing through the slight gloom easily. His nose twitched slightly as he scented the mood.

Suddenly Tony felt horribly self-conscious. He hadn't showered or anything since he'd recovered Pepper, but Pepper had. Loki's keen sense of smell would easily pick up the scent of Pepper on Tony, and what then? Loki had always held a very slight note of jealousy there.

What was interesting, was that when Tony had first started working with Loki, he'd done a lot of research on vampires, to get a better idea of what he was working with. One detail that he'd been pondering a lot recently was that vampires mated for life and tended to form very strong bonds with their mate and with their pack.

Tony was both Loki's mate and his pack. Even if Loki didn't realise it at all, he'd bonded to Tony in some way instinctively, and he'd defend the bond with his life.

Any betrayal of that bond by Tony would probably result in a meltdown on Loki's part. Tony was now quietly terrified, and he hoped Loki's keen sense of smell couldn't pick that up.

This fear was doubled when Loki's eyes jumped between Pepper and Tony repeatedly.

"Brother." Thor said diplomatically. "Have a seat."

Loki utilised his panther-like walk to slink past Steve and seat himself down Tony's end of the table.

"By all means, continue your conversation about my fragility." Loki said with an airy hand wave. "Natasha, old girl, that scowl is most unbecoming."

Natasha's scowl only deepened. "Did you really expect a warm welcome?"

"It wouldn't have gone amiss." Loki said, and Tony could almost_ see_ the crazy radiating off his partner.

"You don't fucking deserve one." Clint spat.

"I'm sensing a little tension." Loki mocked. "I don't see myself in the wrong. Natasha, you started it."

"Wait, what?" Tony said confusedly.

"Oh, Loki didn't tell you about how he assaulted me in an alleyway?" Natasha said harshly. "Funny, that, considering you placed your trust in the_ Liesmith_."

"As I just said, you started it, you malignant whore." Loki snarled. "Tony, love, she was spying on us."

_"When?"_ Tony said, lost, wondering who he should be angry at.

"Upon my return, when I left to hunt, this piece of filth attempted to deceive and betray us." Loki said icily.

"Were you planning to tell me at any point?" Tony snapped.

"It was not my intention, no." Loki admitted.

"That's right, Tony, because he's a lying little shit." Clint tagged on.

"You are not a whole lot better, Barton." Loki pointed out. "When were you and Natasha planning to tell the group on the whole that the angels' intent is in fact to annihilate me and my people, while they scheme to capture Tony and ply information from his brain?"

"Wait, _what?"_ Tony said.

"The angel Fury's initial request of this pair was that they spied on me." Loki explained. "Said angel also contacted Rogers, telling him to seperate us at any cost."

"How do you-?" Steve asked, bewildered.

"I have eyes in a lot of places. You do not seriously think the djinn would leave so quickly?" Loki frowned.

Thor, Tony, Pepper and Bruce by this point looked extremely pissed off at all of them.

"I don't fucking believe you." Tony spat at Team Free Steve. "What happened to teamwork? And you, Loki, you can't just keep me in the dark on this shit. I need to know."

"I'm telling you now." Loki shrugged.

"Brother, enough of your deceit." Thor said. "As well as our comrades. We should all attempt to communicate better."

"I agree. You're behaving like children, all of you." Pepper scolded.

"Give it back." Steve said suddenly to Loki.

Loki raised one perfect eyebrow.

"My knife. You took it. Give it back!" Steve insisted.

"I was curious as to at what point in the conversation you'd grow angry enough to notice." Loki said, skidding the knife across the table. Fucking pickpockets. Steve was actually speechless with frustration and anger. "Now, are we going to have a mature conversation about the future of the human race or are we going to measure cock length, because I'm not fussed on either."

In fact, Bruce, Thor and Tony were the only people in the room who didn't want to strangle Loki, because Pepper seemed to be getting annoyed too.

Natasha decided to summarise. "To break it down, Clint and I - and probably Steve - are allying ourselves with the angels, and it's your loss if you're going to stick with a psychotic vampire."

"I'm not psychotic." Loki sniffed. "I'm differently mentally capable."

"I'm not sticking with Loki." Tony said with an apologetic wince at Loki. "Him and I, we've discussed this; I'm working for Earth. Not Heaven. We don't know what they want. They're powerful and probably even less honest than I am. So everyone can just get off of my cloud and stick to their own realms of existence."

"Aye. I believe Tony is right." Thor agreed.

"Definitely." Pepper said.

"This is as much as I expected." Loki admitted. "Bruce?"

"I'm not picking sides." Bruce said. Everyone made noises of confusion. "I'm serious. I'll help any of you, but we don't know enough about anything that's going on to throw everything in with a foreign force. When I know more, sure. But acting hastily could be fatal."

After people pondered that for a few moments, Loki got to his feet. "I can see this conversation will not benefit me in any way. I'd much appreciate it if you could stow your knife, Rogers."

He didn't. He got to his feet, looking warningly at the vampire as he slunk around the table to the door.

It happened in an instant. Steve shoved Loki's skinny frame into the wall and raised his knife, bringing it across Loki's throat, but Loki struck quickly and kneed Steve in the stomach, taking advantage of his height.

Snatching Steve's knife, Loki kicked Steve in the stomach, sending the blonde man backwards onto the table. With supernatural speed, Loki was straddling Steve's chest, knife digging lightly into the underside of his jaw.

"You truly fail at deception." Loki said.

"Let go of him!" Pepper shrieked.

"Loki, let Steve go." Natasha warned.

Loki's eyes flicked up at Tony's and saw disappointment. With a deep breath, Loki pulled himself off Steve, got to his feet, and walked to the door.

Then he turned, grabbed a knife from his belt, and threw it, sinking it into the middle of the table. A clear warning.

-O.O-

Team Free Steve left shortly after Loki did, a lot of negative energy around them. Tony just sulked that his Chrysler was still in Brooklyn with very little chance of retrieval.

But everything was falling apart a bit. Half of Tony's allies weren't his allies and his bugfuck crazy lover had outdone himself.

Hey, at least he had Thor and Pepper. Bruce had gone home.

Needing comfort that the whiskey he'd had several doses of couldn't provide, but with Thor asleep, Tony snuck to Pepper's room and gently knocked on the door.

"Pep?"

"Come in, Tony." Pepper said. As he opened the door, he found her sitting on the floor folding the clothes they'd taken from her old house and cleaned. "What's bothering you?"

"How do you know something's bothering me?" Tony said suspiciously.

"Why else would you come to visit?" Pepper sighed, patting the carpet next to her. "Have a seat."

"I don't visit just cause I need something." Tony pouted. "Do I? I don't think I do."

"Just let it out." Pepper said.

"It's _everything."_ Tony blurted, slumping onto his butt sadly. "Loki and the guys and Brucey and fuck, this is too difficult."

Pepper just made a resigned noise and petted Tony's hair. "It's okay, Tony. You always manage to pull yourself out of these situations. The others'll come around, and then you can stand on top of the hill and say 'I told you so'."

Tony gave a weak smile. "You think so?"

"I'm just surprised you haven't gotten drunk yet." Pepper admitted.

"I'm not saying that's true." Tony smirked.

"You didn't even bring me any."

"Try and taste some." Tony said, sticking his tongue out. Totally the wrong thing to say to someone who's already kissed you once and expressed the desire to do so again, but he was drunk.

As expected, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. With a funny little noise low in his throat, Tony pulled her forward onto his lap, opening his mouth a little and rubbing his hands up her back. "Can you taste it?" He chuckled.

She smiled and pecked light kisses across his face, making Tony bask a little in the affectionate touches that he'd been sorely lacking in. Like when Loki would nip at his ear or kiss the back of his neck or tap out little rhythms to songs on his leg while thinking.

Running on autopilot, Tony's hands slipped inside Pepper's shirt, hands against warm skin. She was so delicate and gentle, not like Loki, who kissed like it was a battle.

Tony didn't feel the warm unravelling of stress in his chest he usually felt while kissing. No, it was something dark in his heart that was only getting darker with each passing moment, as Pepper's hands tugged at his belt, as he let the kiss continue. Yes, Tony Stark's conscience was not a mythological creature.

Snapping back to the real world, he pulled away from Pepper and rested his head on her shoulder, tears pricking his eyes. "Pep, I can't, I really can't..."

"It's Loki, isn't it?" She said coolly, moving off him.

"Of course it's fucking Loki." Tony said angrily - not anger at Pepper, but at himself. "He's psycho and violent and he's probably going to destroy the world, but I keep looking at him and seeing the quirky little shit I fell in love with before he died."

Pepper looked exasperated. "He nearly killed Steve!"

"Steve hit first." Tony pointed out. "And Loki didn't do it, not after he looked over at me. I saw him do it. He was looking at me for what to do."

"He's still not sane. I don't know what you see in him, Tony, but if you're going to just jerk me around like this to try and get over him, you can get out." Pepper said, and Tony could see the ultimatum in that.

He got up and left the room with a murmured apology, feeling in need of some more alcohol of an undisclosed nature.

-O.O-

"Thor!" Tony announced as he walked into the blonde man's bedroom in the morning. "Get some pants on, I have a hangover and an idea."

Thor stirred to wakefulness pretty quickly; Tony had assumed he wouldn't be a morning person for some reason. "What is your idea, Tony?"

"I have a knife that can kill demons." Tony said, and that perked Thor up. "I didn't mention it at the meeting, 'cause come on, got to keep some aces up my sleeve, but it can."

"That is very impressive. Where did you come across this?" Thor asked.

"Loki gifted it to me." Tony smiled. "See, I figure Amora's a demon, and we can kill demons. We should find her and shiv her ass."

Thor frowned. "How do you intend to find her?"

"Easy." Tony shrugged. "Loki said it himself; he has eyes everywhere. And he wants Amora dead too, so we're teaming with him again."


	9. The Cleanest Star They Ever Had

**A/N: **Frick. Short chapter again, but I'm sticking to my chapter plan, so it is what it is.

Warning for Coulsoners: #CoulsonDoesNotLive

Two chapters left!

* * *

**Chapter 8: The Cleanest Star They Ever Had**

To put it in basic terms, Team Free Steve wanted guidance. They had big ideas - they were soldiers of Heaven, now! - but no task, now that there wasn't a chance in Hell of getting information from Loki, and now that Loki and Tony were going their separate ways.

When you're working for Heaven and in doubt, pray.

That was the shortened version of why they were walking into church at midnight, the large stone chapel open at all hours to those in need of spiritual guidance.

As soon as Steve's butt hit the pew, there was a soft rustle and Phillip Of The Cowl was standing serenely at the podium, dark hair as perfectly arranged as always.

"You have questions." The angel commented.

"Of course we do," Clint frowned. "You guys recruited us, you've got to keep us busy. What do you want?"

Phillip seemed to ponder this. "Affairs in Heaven at the moment are extremely complicated."

"That's not an answer." Natasha pointed out.

This amused Phillip. He smiled at them as if to say _how quaint, the humans are thinking,_ before saying "The most useful thing you and your people could do at this point in time is eliminate Loki Laufeyson. He has plans, big ones, and they definitely don't favour anyone but his kin."

"I guessed as much," Steve said. "How should we do it?"

"He's a vampire," Phillip replied dryly. "Take his head off."

"Wait, why haven't you angels taken care of him already?" Clint asked suspiciously. "Too tough for your asses?"

"Not quite." An English voice interjected, and for _fuck's sakes,_ would Loki stop just randomly turning up while people were talking about him? Everyone's eyes darted upwards to the windows high up above the podium, where Loki and a large shifting shape appeared to have camped themselves. He was shrouded in shadows where the candles and electric lights didn't reach, though he could see them all perfectly. "Angels are disinclined to attack me because I'll be resurrected from Purgatory as soon as Angrboda hears. I'm not wholly certain why they're dumping the task on you."

"Loki, just surrender." Phillip said with a note of boredom. "We both know you're going to fail. You lack conviction."

"Mm, really?" Loki grinned, his teeth unnaturally white. He patted the shapeless mass next to him, which made a clicking noise. At their looks of confusion, he explained "It's my ride. Unfortunately, one of my _dumber_ associates was allowed to name him. So we're stuck with_ leviabat._ Changelings think they're so bloody clever. Anyway. My faithful steed, if you wouldn't mind, could you kill Phillip for me?"

The leviabat made a bizarre sound somewhere between screech and gurgle and swooped down from the window, opening its immense jaw to swallow Phillip -

Who stabbed it in the head with his angel blade. It died with a wet splattering sound and fell to the floor limp.

"How confident are you now, vampire?" Phillip asked, stowing the blade in his sleeve after wiping it on the leviabat's leathery wing, Loki's eyes following the knife greedily.

"As confident as ever." Loki hummed, seemingly unbothered, though Natasha hadn't missed his twitch when his pet was killed.

The humans in the room were content to retreat a bit and just watch this showdown of supernatural creatures as Loki sprang neatly down from his perch to slink ever closer to Phillip.

"Laufeyson, I'll repeat myself. You lack conviction; you were once human, and I don't believe you'll go through with your plans." Phillip said boredly as Loki drew to within a metre of him.

"You don't lack conviction." Loki noted, moving closer. "Not at all, you're_ righteous_, or you think you are. How sickening. Angels are flat, emotionless creatures, dedicated to their father, never to experience true pain or _pleasure-_" He ran his hands up Phillip's sleeves teasingly. "And you claim to be better than me. I've lived more in my thirty-two years than you have in millenia."

The only real reason Phillip was putting up with Loki's mixture of threats and weird sexual advances was in the hope he could get some information. "I'm fighting for the bettering of creation. You fight for ruin."

"Ruin of those who would destroy my precious Earth, certainly, and protecting God's finest creation is hardly a sin." Loki purred, circling around Phillip.

"Actively fighting the children of our Father is." Phillip replied, deadpan.

The tension in the air was electric. The three humans felt like they were standing on the edge of a precipice.

Loki stood directly behind Phillip. He leaned forward, hot bloody breath tickling his vessel's ear. "You lose, angel."

Phillip's hands glowed, ready to smite Loki, but it was too late; Loki had thrust his stolen angel blade through the angel's spine.

A blaze of white light blitzed out the church, illuminating every cobweb as the silhouette of a pair of wings blazed across Loki's being. The vampire screamed in pain as the wings were burned across his neck and onto his jacket.

Then it all faded, anticlimactically fast. Phillip's body slumped to the ground, leaving the wing imprint on Loki's throat and favourite leater jacket, and little other evidence he'd been anything more than a tax accountact.

Rather dispassionately, Loki reached down and yanked the blade from the angel's back, wiped it on his pants and added it to his collection of knives.

"And father told me pickpocketing was not a respectable hobby for a young man." Loki mused.

Team Free Steve's collective disbelief broke in that moment, and they all drew weapons.

"Loki, surrender and give us the knife." Natasha said evenly.

"Let's see. I can survive your guns, Rogers, Natasha, and I'm not particularly afraid of a pistol crossbow, Barton, even if the bolt is silver tipped." Loki sighed. "If you somehow succeed in killing me, despite my unnaturally fast reflexes and combat training equal to yours, I will simply be resurrected by my allies. I'm not here to fight. I have what I came here for."

"You _killed_ an _angel!_" Clint shouted.

"Astute observation. Perhaps I should call you Hawkeye." Loki said boredly. "I can thrown a knife with a great deal of skill. Do not tempt me to stick one between your eyes."

With an almost shocking amount of nonchalance, Loki to the main entrance of the church via stepping over Phillip's corpse and left through the heavy wooden doors.

"He killed an angel." Clint repeated.

-O.O-

"It's a left here, Thor." Tony said, staring at his phone. Loki hadn't been answering his phone, so Tony had gone for the next best thing; having JARVIS track it.

Thor pulled into the parking lot of the church beside one other lonely car and looked around. "Why would my brother be in a chapel?"

"I'll agree it's not his usual place." Tony frowned, getting his weapons together.

-O.O-

Once Loki was clear of the chapel doorway, he scaled the outside with ease and slipped back in, clinging to the rafters to observe Team Free Steve's next move.

His sharp ears distinctly heard a car pull up outside, followed by the voices of Tony and his brother.

_How had they found him?_

They'd either gotten information from Team Free Steve, or - Loki checked his phone. Eight missed calls, six from Tony, two from Thor.

Well. He could get a lot of information from the confrontation of his lover and brother versus the humans they used to trust. He nestled his ass down on the rafter some more.

Below him, Steve was getting antsy. "We should leave."

"I think we should wait to see if Heaven sends another delegate." Clint countered with a backwards glance at Phillip's remains.

"And draw them closer to Loki? I don't want any other angels to die." Steve urged.

"Loki had a lucky break. If he'd been two seconds slower he would have been killed." Natasha said dismissively. "I don't think he's anything to worry about."

Just then, Tony shoved through the wooden doors, which screeched in protest. All three assembled hunters raised their weapons in shock.

Too much shock. Steve accidentally squeezed the trigger.

_BANG!_

It was like Phillip's dying white light made noise in that the gunshot filled the room. Tony fell backwards with an exclamation of shock just as Thor came in.

_"Tony!"_ Loki screamed, diving from the rafters to shelter his mate. As he landed, he scrambled over to Tony and scooped him against his chest.

Team Free Steve all had similar exclamations on their lips as they rushed over, but as they got too close, Loki threw one of his knives in warning, which cut across Clint's calf. Clint swore violently and Loki actually hissed at them.

_"Stay away!"_ Loki snarled. "He is _mine!"_

"Brother, we must get Tony to a hosp-" Thor started, indicating the rose of blood blossoming from Tony's shoulder.

"Get away!" Loki growled at Thor. "I will take him there. Do not even_ think_ of touching Tony!"

With that, Loki bundled Tony up, snatched the keys from Thor and made his way out.

"Loki, come back!" Thor shouted, trying to at least ride in the car to help his friend and brother. Loki slammed the car door and drove off, not even a little willing to let any of them near his Tony.

Fucking vampires and their pack mentality.

* * *

**A/N: **Oops, Loki went all feral like a motherfucker.

And, just to clarify (because I'm not sure how clear it was) Loki stole Coulson's knife because it was stashed up Coulson's sleeve and Loki pretended to flirt with him to steal it. He's just that light-fingered.


	10. So I'll Pretend I'm Walking Home

**A/N: **Yeah, short. It sucks. And the next chapter might be too. At least this is nearly over. One chapter left after this!

By the way, Gemma in this is based on my dog. No, seriously.

* * *

**Chapter 9: So I'll Pretend I'm Walking Home**

"What happened to you?" Tony said blearily, trying to stay awake through the pain and the blood loss and Loki's slightly erratic driving.

"I stabbed an angel in the spine." Loki said distractedly.

"Oh, cool." Tony slurred. "Did it do anything?"

"He's dead. It was surprisingly messy, hence the burns." Loki replied.

"Oh. I bet Steve's pissed."

"He was terrified of me. It was quite amusing."

Tony gave pained groan as he wriggled in his seat. "Please say you're taking me to a hospital."

"I very much am. My medical skills don't extend to removing low caliber bullets from shoulders." Loki deadpanned.

With a weak laugh, Tony looked down at his injury. There was a little puncture, oozing blood but not gushing, and every time he moved a lancing pain fired from that shoulder. "You know you'll have to actually let the doctors near me, right?" He said awkwardly. He'd been in shock at the time, but oh no, he hadn't missed how Loki had suddenly gotten overly possessive of him.

Loki took a deep breath. "Yes. Of course. I apologise; I just can't - my instincts are stronger than they used to be. Angrboda says the sudden activity of the vampire hivemind is to blame. I used to be able to block it out, but now it tugs on my every thought, and it - it's not something I can control anymore."

"Oh. Shit." Tony said, his mouth dry suddenly. "So, what, you're going to eat me?" He joked weakly.

"Of course not. You're my packmate." Loki tutted. "Not unless you give permission."

Of all the places in Malibu, Loki only knew where the hospital, the morgue, the Avenger's bar, Pepper's house, and Tony's house were. The hospital was in his knowledge primarily because he figured knowing his luck he'd probably need it at some point, and he'd visited the other places.

With that in mind he pulled into the hospital, nearly fucking up the turn as someone whose night vision wasn't quite as good as his didn't see him, and took a few breaths in preparation for people being all over Tony. The last 24 hours, what with Angrboda using the Alphas - including the Alpha Vampire - to gather their forces, had nearly robbed Loki of his tenuous grasp on sanity. He was having sudden bursts of vampirism, kept in focus only by his goals. Seeing his packmate hurt had kicked off another of these episodes.

Loki parked Tony's car in a space and dashed around the car to lift his mate up and carry him easily to A & E. Perhaps a few eyebrows were raised at how little effort it took Loki to carry the stocky man, but subtlety was not the priority.

"Fill out a form and sit down." The man at the counter said.

"He's been shot!" Loki yelped in indignation.

"Did I stutter?" The man frowned, holding out a form.

To Loki's relief, a nurse poked her head up and took Tony off Loki's hands. Loki's instincts kicked up a fuss, but the vampire was outwardly calm as he filled out the form and handed it to the receptionist before falling into a chair to wait.

In the time he spent waiting, to Loki's amusement, a little girl with a nasty cough came up to him and pointed out how pale he was before actually, directly asking if he was a vampire because of 'your evil-guy black hair'.

"Yes, love." Loki smiled warmly. "But I'm not a bad vampire."

"I thought all vampires were bad." The girl pouted.

"Not me. I like humans." Loki said tolerantly.

"You bite humans." The girl giggled.

"No, I don't." Loki protested, but the girl leaned forward and nipped his hand.

"I bited you back." She said, beaming ear to ear.

"Gemma, I told you no biting!" The little girl's mother scolded from three seats down from Loki.

"I honestly do not mind." Loki pointed out. It was true; he didn't, he had a soft spot for little kids. And he felt pretty warm and fuzzy - his bloodlust wasn't kicking in at the moment for whatever reason, so he felt fine near all the people.

The girl - Gemma - shrank back to her mother anyway, and Loki slumped his head backwards to try for a moment's rest.

_DemonsinHoopleweneedhelpthedjinnMalekithsightednun neryunderwatchwe'velocatedherchefdoesanyoneknowhow tokilldemonswe'rethemonsterracewecanwinthismotherc anyouhearme-_

Rest wasn't going to happen. Not with the Chant Of The Everlasting Skeletal Circle shooting around his brain.

Loki's sharp hearing picked up the most quiet of_ whoosh_es._ Angel,_ he thought, hand slipping to the angel blade still concealed in his jacket.

A nurse tapped him on the shoulder. "Mr-"

"Jarlson." Loki lied, suspicious.

She glared at him, as if to say _I know what you did last Wednesday._

With a crook of his finger, Loki called her closer so he could murmur in her ear. He could feel the slight disturbances that would protect her from any sudden moves on his part.

"Angel." He murmured to her. "And we both know that is not a pet name. You lay a hand on myself, on Anthony Stark, or on any human in this waiting room, and I will gladly destroy you. You see, I kept Phillip's knife after I killed him. I assume that's why you're here."

She pulled away, glaring at him with those clever eyes. "He was part of my garrison."

"Cry me a river." Loki said sarcastically. Gemma's mother was looking over confusedly at his treatment of the slim, dark-haired nurse. "Tony is part of my pack. Why would your 'garrison' mean more to me than my pack?"

"Anthony Edward Stark has nothing to do with this." The angel replied icily.

"Oh, but he does. I'll defend humanity with everything I have." Loki said. "Please continue on your way."

"I'll be back. Father says the humans should be left out of this." She said haughtily, walking off.

"Who was that, Evil-Hair?" Gemma asked Loki.

"A mean lady. She doesn't like vampires." Loki sighed, slumping lower in his chair.

"I don't like vampires either." Gemma grinned, before coughing violently. When she pulled herself together, she hugged Loki's bony leg. "I like you."

"Gemma! Leave him alone!" Gemma's mother scolded. "Sorry."

"Again, I don't mind, even slightly." Loki smiled.

-O.O-

It didn't take the rest of the cohort, including Pepper and Bruce, too long to arrive. Of the six people, only Thor went to sit next to Loki.

"There was an angel here." Loki told him. "To threaten me, I think, though she did not succeed."

"That's my brother." Thor said with an affectionate smile, stretching his arm around Loki's bony shoulders to give him a side-hug.

Loki didn't even bother to throw him off. Unfortunately, Gemma had gone with her mother to see the doctor, so Loki couldn't entertain himself with her.

It was a lot of waiting until a nurse - not the nurse-angel - came to pick Loki up on Tony's behalf.

Tony was mostly fine. They'd taken the bullet out, stiched him up, and put his arm in a sling for the time being. He was just as concerned as Loki was when it came to the angels.

With a bottle of over-the-counter painkillers and the warning to not stress himself Tony was released; they needed the beds for other, more serious cases. With that in mind, Tony irritably accepted Steve's neverending apologies and went to negotiate in an all-night diner with Loki and Thor about finding Amora and killing her.

Oh, no, he didn't miss the absolutely _filthy_ look Loki gave Pepper as they look. It wasn't angry so much as wanting to tear her throat out and drink her blood.

"So, you have a knife that can kill angels." Tony started once he'd got his burger. "Can you shiv Amora with it?"

"I'm willing to assume so." Loki nodded. "That was my plan; I can kill everything from angels to demons. I just needed to obtain this knife."

"Well, you did an impressive job, though the slaying of an angel was not advisable, brother." Thor said.

"A necessary - well, I would say evil, but I regret nothing." Loki shrugged.

"So you said you have eyes everywhere; do you know where Amora is?" Tony asked.

"Allow me a moment to confer with the vampire hive mind." Loki said, drawing his knees onto the seat to cross his legs and concentrate. It was a little distracting, the smell of humans everywhere, but Loki was good at pushing bloodthirsty thoughts away.

_AssaultonvampiresinCanadamothermother-_

Loki butted in._ DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE AMORA IS?_

_She'sldfjbndlneopribnsalskliewnb-_

_ONE VOICE AT A TIME._

A strong female vampire interjected helpfully. _My pack has been tracking Amora's chef; she only eats newborn children. I'd recommend Boise, Idaho. Somewhere in the vicinity of St. Alphonus Regional Medical Centre._

_Thank you!_ Loki replied, before flicking his eyes open. Tony and Thor were staring at him curiously.

"Boise. A hospital in Boise." Loki blurted triumphantly.

"Wow." Tony said in awe. "I want to study that some day."

"Don't." Loki warned. "It's enough to drive you over the edge."

Tony fell silent awkwardly.

"In any case," Loki said. "I'd prefer to do this myself, because I can be resurrected and neither of you can. She's no ordinary demon. She's the first demon."

Tony rubbed his beard; a piece of knowledge was niggling at the corner of his psyche. "You said she couldn't be killed in some church, right?"

"She can be killed there; however, her death there would open the devil's cage and begin the apocalypse. So I'd rather it was done elsewhere." Loki shrugged.

"As would I." Thor added gravely. "Are you certain you will be safe alone?"

"That is my point, Thor, I won't be safe and neither will any of you. But Tony is injured and I would rather not risk your life while I can be resurrected if I fail, so I would prefer to do it alone."

"Point taken." Tony shrugged. "You want to bring the others in on this?"

"Simply because they wouldn't trust me, no, I'd rather not." Loki replied.

Loki spotted something out the window. It was around 3 or 4 am, and the blackness outside was punctuated by garish neon and streetlights, but still weighed heavily on Malibu. What he could see was a someone peering at him through light-enhancing binoculars from a car down a side road.

So it was either Team Free Steve, or demons. Angels were a tad more omniscient than that. If it was demons, they probably wouldn't bother with the observation first, so it was probably the irritating humans. Especially seeing as they'd have to be dense enough to forget how easily Loki saw in the dark.

"By the way, the angel I killed destroyed my method of transport." Loki said. "Is there a chance I could borrow a car?"

"'Course." Tony smiled. "I want to help. How about we take my car back to the house and you take it from there?"

Thor rose and went to the counter to pay, so Loki leaned forward and pressed a firm kiss to Tony's lips for the audience he had camped a little way away.

_How does that harlot Pepper like that?_ Loki thought triumphantly.

-O.O-

"Maria." Fury said, tone dark and serious as the younger angel appeared.

"Fury." She said, irritably kicking off the hospital shoes.

"What do you know?" The archangel asked.

"The vampire took Phillip's blade and threatened me. He believes himself undefeatable." Maria replied.

"Every man has his weakness, and Laufeyson was once a man." Fury pointed out. "He has his human lover, doesn't he?"

"Tony Stark. Yes, he mentioned him when he told me he was protecting the humans." Maria said.

Fury just continued to stare thoughtfully at the walls around them, plotting out his next move.


	11. The Road So Far

**A/N: **Right, this is obscenely late. Hectic personal life, yada yada, you're not interested.

In any case, the sequel to this will be coming at some point. It'll be called Open Your Mouth Boy. After that, there'll be two more parts, It's Not How Big, It's How Mean, and Carry On My Wayward Son.

* * *

**Chapter 10: The Road So Far**

Loki knew very well that Amora was going to be more of a challenge than the angel. She was expecting an assassination from his quarter, probably knew about both the demon-killing knife and the angel blade, and was not about to underestimate an envoy of Angrboda's now she'd seen what the All-Mother could do.

However, Loki had made it to this age by bluffing, feinting and lying, and this tactic would likely hold out against even the queen of demons herself. They didn't call him Silvertongue just because he gave great head, after all.

The drive to Boise was not a short one. It was supposed to take about 14 hours, but by defying a few traffic laws, not resting, and probably charging a few speeding tickets to Tony's account, he made it there in 11 and a half.

He had a job to do.

-O.O-

Whoever his informative vampire friend had been, she'd given Loki good information. St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Centre was down a few babies, and the nurse working there denied all guilt.

Loki liked the hospital. It was modern, tidy, with a faint whiff of blood buried somewhere under the endless cleaning and washing. Home sweet home.

Another thing Loki liked about this hospital in particular was that the security was piss-poor and he was backstage before he knew it, in an employee elevator with a keycard he'd pickpocketed.

When the doors slid open to the nursery, Loki looked around the dimmed lights to see a woman in scrubs gently holding a baby.

_"Cristo,"_ Loki said clearly.

The woman - no, demon - flinched violently, nearly dropping the kid as she whirled around. Her eyes were inky-black. And it was pretty clear she'd heard of him, because she - rather callously - stuffed the baby back in the basinet and snarled "Vampire!"

"A+ for identification," Loki said dryly. He was getting really sick of people either shouting his name or his species at him all the time. "Look, I'm going to cut my usual mysterious macho routine, and say this: Tell me where Amora is or I will torture you within an inch of your filthy black-eyed life."

"Never. I fear her more than I could ever fear you," The demon replied.

"You know, I keep hearing that," Loki sighed. "I think you underestimate me."

"I will-" Loki didn't find out what the end to that sentence was, because he raised Tony's dart gun and shot her in the neck.

After five minutes of shrieking, he pulled the dart out and watched as she slowly calmed.

"Do you understand?" Loki asked politely. Her face formed a snarl, so he pulled another of the darts out of the gun and stabbed her.

After this repitition, she seemed much more willing to cooperate. "Am - Amora's -"

"Take a deep breath," Loki murmured soothingly.

Slowing her rapid breaths, the demon said "Amora's across town, apartment complex, don't hurt me-"

Irritably, Loki got a pen and the back of a form and said "Just write the fucking thing down."

Hands shaking, she scrawled the address on the paper and handed it to Loki.

"If you're lying, I will be back here, and you will beg me to let you die," Loki warned.

The demon tried to put on a steely resolve. "I will not beg a lowly beast like you."

"Oh, I could make you beg for mercy. Twice," Loki said, grinning impishly as he stuffed the paper into his jacket pocket and left.

-O.O-

Thankfully, the demon baby-cook had not lied about Amora's location. This suited Loki, because in all honesty he was never in the mood for torture.

He was, however, always in the mood for assassinating the Queen Bitch of demonhood. Having spent the whole drive plotting it out, and briefly conferring with Angrboda to tell her his plans, he was feeling confident.

The fact that Amora was living in a mostly-empty apartment block was a little weird, but when you thought about it, there was room for all her people in it, and she could just have the employees possessed.

She herself was on the top floor.

Loki strutted confidently in the front door, repeated his trick of saying 'Cristo' to catch everyone's attention, and then asked to see Amora. They were all clearly taken aback by Loki's complete lack of fear even though he knew what they were.

"Send an envoy upstairs and tell her Loki the vampire would like to speak to her. Omit neither detail of my identity, and I guarantee she will accept," Loki said, calm in the face of half a dozen offended-looking demons, one brandishing a particularly sharp letter-opener.

After a moment of confused standing-around, one demon took the elevator upstairs.

The silence was brutal.

When the demon came back, she simply nodded at gestured at the open elevator doors.

-O.O-

"Loki! How _lovely_ to see you," Amora said, blatantly sneering.

"Amora. As lovely as ever," Loki replied, just as derisively.

"I heard a rumour you defied death and were coming to kill me. Wouldn't that be silly?" Amora smirked.

"I did not defy death. I walked into it, and was reborn," Loki deadpanned. "Good things do happen to bad people."

"And the _coming to kill me_ part?" Amora asked.

"Entirely true. Tell me, Amora, have you heard of Angrboda's knife? Forged in Hell itself, capable of killing any demon?" Loki said conversationally.

Amora just narrowed her eyes.

"I'll take that as a yes. You know, she gifted it to me in recompense for my services?" Loki continued cheerfully, drawing a knife from his belt. It wasn't the demon-killing knife, Tony still had that, but she didn't know that.

"It cannot kill me," Amora said stiffly.

"Mm. Well, you don't know that until you try, I suppose." Loki grinned, twirling the knife between his fingers. He'd learned a lot of knife tricks in Purgatory, and was lethal with a mostly-blunt stone knife. Give him sharpened metal and he was in his zone. "I could throw this right through your eye socket."

"I'd destroy you before that blade left your fingers," Amora warned.

"Probably," Loki admitted. "You know, the only reason I dragged myself out of Purgatory was to be the man who slew Amora? I liked it there. I didn't have to think, to plan, to speak, to pretend to be anything more than a monster. When all this is over, likely I'll take my own life. My packmates can do better. But enough about me. Amora, I walk into this confrontation with confidence. How would you like to die today?"

"You seem so sure of yourself, vampire."

"Of course I'm sure of myself. I killed an angel; I can kill you," Loki said proudly.

Despite the macho grandstanding, the pair of them were still facing each other across a filthy open-plan living room, a decent way away from each other. Loki was clutching the knife in one hand, fingering the blade of the angel's weapon with the other, and looking confident. Amora just radiated disinterest.

Loki knew the time was now. He slid his fingers to the tip of the ordinary blade, threw it across the room-

It sank into Amora's abdomen and she didn't flinch-

Then the demon queen was holding out a hand that glistened with bright white light, preparing to blast him-

Loki threw himself across the room, angel blade in hand, and he stabbed her in the eye socket just as she went to blast him.

She screamed in shock and pain as the white light washed over Loki's body, burning his flesh. Having not finished preparing, the white light was less intense than it could've been, but it still ached and seared and Loki collapsed to the ground, lying right next to the demon he'd just killed.

After a moment of head-clearing, Loki inspected himself. His hands, face and neck - his only exposed skin - were pocked with second-degree burns, screaming points of pain that made him reluctant to even try moving.

Very carefully, he removed his jacket, ignoring the jolts in his hands, to remove his t-shirt so he could slice it into pieces and bind his hands. Then he retrieved his knives from Amora's corpse, slipping them into his belt, and climbed unsteadily to his feet. Every joint ached.

Now he needed to leave the building without being assaulted by the many demons in the lobby.

What he wouldn't give for his Leviabat right now. His healing factor was going to be faster than an ordinary human's, but without human blood, it still wasn't going to be fast.

He wished Tony was there. Or Thor. He didn't want to have to attack someone.

Sliding open the window, Loki climbed out onto the metal fire escape, preparing for a lot of stairs.

-O.O-

Loki had the bright idea of breaking into the hospital again to get a bag of donated blood. That helped, a lot, making the drive home significantly less painful.

He pulled into Malibu 24 hours after he'd left, wondering exactly what could have happened in that time.

Thor was standing at the door. He recoiled in horror at Loki's face.

"I am aware of the state I am in," Loki said. "It looked a lot worse when it happened."

"Brother," Thor said gravely.

"Where is Tony?" Loki asked.

"Brother, Tony is gone," Thor said.

"What? Where?" Loki asked, getting edgy.

"I do not know," Thor sighed.

Loki's sharp brain immediately ran through everything he knew about where Tony could possibly be. With Bruce. With Pepper. Drinking in a bar. "What happened, from your perspective?"

"I entered his room this morning, and he was not there. JARVIS replayed the security footage, he simply disappeared from his bed in the night," Thor informed him.

Only two sides could teleport, Purgatory and Heaven. Angrboda would have told him.

_Angels._ "The angels have my partner," Loki snarled.

They were going to pay for this.

-O.O-

Tony opened his eyes confusedly. This wasn't his bedroom. This looked more like a Victorian manor. Without windows.

A pretty woman was sitting next to him, only it couldn't be a woman-

"Tony Stark," she said. "Your vampire has been causing us a great deal of trouble."

_Fucking angels. Fucking Loki. I didn't ask to be his weak spot!_ Tony thought, actually saying "Well, that's nice, sweetcheeks, but I don't see how that's my problem."

"If he doesn't behave himself, we'll kill you," The angel said bluntly.

_Ah._

-O.O-

"Amora's dead," Malekith remarked disinterestly.

"I know," Lorelei said with just as much apathy.

"Looks like plan 'start our own Apocalypse without Father' is a go," He continued.

She just nodded.


End file.
